Twitter fined for delay in complying with federal Trump election probe

 Newly unsealed documents reveal federal investigators sought a search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

Former US President Donald Trump has called the search warrant a violation of his rights

Newly released court documents have revealed that federal investigators successfully requested a search warrant for the Twitter account of former United States President Donald Trump.

The documents also indicated that Twitter — now known as X — attempted to resist the warrant, ultimately resulting in the social media platform being held in civil contempt.

The court filings, unsealed on Wednesday, stemmed from a decision issued by the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, on July 18. The court upheld a $350,000 fine against Twitter for failing to meet the terms of the search warrant.

“Although Twitter ultimately complied with the warrant, the company did not fully produce the requested information until three days after a court-ordered deadline,” the decision reads.

The warrant sought materials related to the @realDonaldTrump social media profile, formerly the ex-president’s platform of choice.

Trump was eventually suspended from Twitter and other social media platforms such as Facebook in the wake of the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the building in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

On January 17, as Smith and his team were gathering evidence for those charges, they applied for a search warrant for the @realDonaldTrump account. A district court granted the request, saying there was “probable cause” to search the account for criminal offences.

But the government had also requested a nondisclosure order along with the warrant, to ensure Twitter could not tip off Trump or his allies about the impending search. The court granted that as well.

The district court “found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump ‘would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation'”, according to Wednesday’s documents.

A tip-off could give Trump “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates”, the court explained.