A U.S. special counsel won a secret demand for former President Trump’s Twitter account last winter, and a judge fined the social media company $350,000 for failing to promptly comply with her order, court papers revealed Wednesday.
Smith’s team of prosecutors convinced Judge to order Twitter, now called X, to turn over details of Trump’s then long-suspended account in January and unspecified data tied to the account.
Trump lashed out over the news calling the judge-approved warrant a violation of his rights.
"(Prosecutors) secretly attacked my Twitter account, making it a point not to let me know about this major ‘hit’ on my civil rights,” Trump wrote on his social site.
Twitter eventually complied with the judge’s order but the social media company stalled, claiming it should be allowed to notify Trump first.
Howell rejected that claim and fined Twitter $50,000 a day, with the fine doubled each day. After three days, Twitter paid up.
It’s not clear what Smith hoped to unearth from Trump’s Twitter or if anything more than his public posts were handed over, like unsent draft posts or location data, for example.
Trump tweeted regularly during the period between the 2020 election and , the timeframe he is accused by Smith of hatching a plot to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden.
Some of Trump’s tweets played a major role in the alleged plot to overturn the election, a point that Smith claims culminated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
