Newly unsealed court records indicate special counsel Jack Smith’s team warned that former President Trump could “precipitate violence” unless the court shielded its efforts to obtain information on his Twitter account.
The records show Smith’s office obtained a total of 32 direct messages from Trump’s account as part of its investigation, with a copy of the warrant also unsealed Friday showing the breadth of the information prosecutors sought.
The 71-page filing from prosecutors, submitted to the court in April but unsealed Friday, offers new details about why Smith’s team feared alerting Trump to the matter.
The secret battle to obtain the records was revealed in an opinion unsealed in August, showing that Twitter, now known as X, was fined $350,000 for not complying with a court order to turn over the records.
Earlier unsealed court records showed the special counsel was concerned that if Trump knew about the warrant to access his account he could disclose it to the public, something they said “could precipitate violence as occurred following the public disclosure of the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago.”
The arguments were made as X appealed a lower court order to turn over the information to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
While prosecutors reiterated prior arguments that Trump could jeopardize the case if the warrant was disclosed, it cites Trump’s past behavior as the need to do so.
“These are not hypothetical considerations in this case....
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