Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office obtained a search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, and was allowed by a court to keep it sealed amid concerns the ex-president might “flee from prosecution.”
“The filing says the court ‘found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses,'” according to the Associated Press.
The search warrant was “so secret,” CNN adds, “that Twitter was barred from telling Trump the search warrant had been obtained for his account, and Twitter was fined $350,000 because it delayed producing the records sought under the search warrant.”
“The district court, according to the DC Circuit’s opinion, ‘found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump ‘would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation’ by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates.'”
READ MORE: Look: Trump’s Signed Document Acknowledging He Cannot Retaliate Against or Intimidate Witnesses
“The district court also concluded the non-disclosure order was necessary because it ‘found reason to believe that the former President would ‘flee from prosecution,’ ‘ a footnote says.”
Pointing to the $350,000 fine, Politico reports, “A federal court of appeals upheld that fine last month in a sealed opinion. But on Wednesday, the court unsealed a redacted version of that opinion, revealing the secret battle for the first time.”
That redacted version of the opinion is 34 pages long.
Image via Shutterstock