Another Example of gross DOJ overreach?
According to The New York Post, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating former President and 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 riot, gained a comprehensive search warrant allowing DOJ access to Trump’s Twitter followers.
In addition to accessing all devices Trump used to log on to Twitter, Smith was granted access to information on users interacting with Trump: followers, likes, favorites —all of it.
“The [heavily-redacted] search warrant, issued in January against the company now known as X, was among several documents released by the Justice Department Monday as part of a lawsuit brought by media organizations seeking sunlight on the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol,” NYP reports.
Eight of the fourteen pages were completely redacted.
“All information from the ‘Connect’ or ‘Notifications’ tab for the account, including all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by the account, as well as all tweets that include the username associated with the account (i.e. “mentions” or “replies”),” the warrant states.
“Twitter balked at the nondisclosure order, arguing in a failed court challenge that it was a violation of the First Amendment and the Stored Communications Act,” NYP reports.
According to the report, the DOJ even opposed Trump being notified about the warrant.
“For what appears to be the first time in its history, Twitter Inc. (‘Twitter’) has filed a motion to vacate or modify an order that it not disclose the existence of a search warrant,” Smith argued, insisting that “there is reason to believe notification to the former president, a sophisticated actor with an expansive platform, would result in a statutorily cognizable harm.”
“The NDO was granted based on facts showing that notifying the former president would result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, or other serious jeopardy to an investigation or delaying of trial,” Smith wrote in the redacted filing.
This is strong evidence the DOJ is targeting the GOP frontrunner and his supporters. Imagine what was in the redacted pages…
