Twitter, renamed X since late July, became embroiled in Donald Trump’s legal turmoil. The media political revealed on August 9 that the platform was ordered to pay a $350,000 fine in March as part of the investigation into the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2020. Twitter had released information about Donald Trump’s account but with three days delay.
A secret court battle
It all started on January 17. US Attorney Jack Smith issues a search warrant against Twitter seeking information on Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
This search warrant was accompanied by a confidentiality order, which prevented Twitter from publishing the existence or content of the warrant. Twitter challenged the order, saying it violated the First Amendment and the Communications Act. An application rejected by the court which then gives you 17 hours to provide the information.
Twitter did eventually send the requested items, but on February 10 instead of February 7. This led the federal judge to find Twitter in contempt and fine it $350,000. Therefore, this notice was released publicly on August 9, revealing for the first time the details of the secret legal battle. For its part, Twitter has appealed the fine.
Account activity data
The purpose of this search warrant was above all to obtain data that is not publicly available: who had access to Donald Trump’s account? From which devices? From what places? Were there any unsent redacted tweets, as well as private messages?
As a reminder, Donald Trump actively used his Twitter account in the context of the attack on the Capitol, posting false accusations of voter fraud and calling on his supporters in Washington to “stop the theft” by staging attacks against elected Democrats in particular.
The former president had been banned from Twitter just days after January 6, after Twitter discovered that his tweets violated its terms of service. In November 2002, Elon Musk reinstated his account, but the former president has never tweeted since his return.
Source: BFM TV
