Mon Aug 14, 2023 – 6:06 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) – Twitter/X must pay $335,000 in fines for resisting the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) search warrant seeking records relating to the account of former President Donald Trump, according to a recently unsealed 3-0 ruling from a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Time Magazine reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith sought the information as part of his investigation into the former president’s challenging of the 2020 election results. Smith also sought to bar Twitter (since rebranded as X by owner Elon Musk) from publicly disclosing the warrant so as not to alert Trump to an ongoing investigation.
Smith obtained the warrant in January for records pertaining to Trump’s Twitter account, which the company’s prior management famously banned after the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Musk, who bought the company last year with the stated purpose of making it more open and politically neutral, reinstated Trump last November, though Trump opted to remain on his own platform, Truth Social.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell approved the warrant to search it for potential “evidence of criminal offenses.” Twitter objected to the
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