The Department of Justice (DOJ) told a federal appeals court that permitting disclosure of their warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account could “precipitate violence,” according to a court document unsealed on Friday.
Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for Trump’s Twitter account in January, along with a nondisclosure order that prevented Twitter from notifying the former president about the warrant. Twitter fought the order on First Amendment grounds, but prosecutors argued that siding with Twitter would jeopardize the investigation and potentially “precipitate violence as occurred following the public disclosure of the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago,” according to brief the government filed in Twitter’s appeal of order.
The district court ultimately issued the order after finding reason to believe Trump “presents a significant risk of tampering with evidence, seeking to influence or intimidate potential witnesses, and ‘otherwise seriously jeopardizing’ the Government’s ongoing investigations,” the unsealed order also explains. (RELATED: Jack Smith Obtained Trump’s DMs, Tweet Drafts And Search History With Twitter…
