It was nearly a week ago when the public learned of a new element in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s post-defeat scandal: Prosecutors executed a search warrant on the former president’s Twitter account earlier this year. By all appearances, the Republican was not pleased.
Initially, Trump described this as a “secret attack” on his account and a “major ‘hit’” on his civil rights. (It was neither.) A few days later, he added, “How dare lowlife prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, break into my former Twitter account without informing me and, indeed, trying to completely hide this atrocity from me. What could he possibly find out that is not already known.”
The relevant details of the former president’s whining were clearly a mess. There’s a dramatic difference, for example, between getting a search warrant and “breaking into” something. For that matter, it’s not an “atrocity” when prosecutors seek court-approved access to a criminal suspect’s communications.
But it was Trump’s last point that stood out for me: What could federal investigators “possibly find out” from the Republican’s Twitter account that is “not already known”? Oddly enough, many observers have been wondering the same thing. Trump’s tweets are publicly accessible, so what were prosecutors looking for? Drafts? Deleted missives? Search history?
Or perhaps direct messages? NBC News reported:
Special counsel Jack Smith’s office obtained a search warrant this year to gain access to Twitter communications, including direct messages, linked to former President Donald Trump’s account, new details about the warrant revealed Tuesday.
It’s of note that Twitter, after Elon Musk took ownership of the social media platform, did not act quickly to cooperate with the investigation. A Politico report noted overnight, “[I]t took a bruising battle with Twitter’s attorneys in January and February — punctuated by a blistering analysis by a federal judge, who wondered whether Elon Musk was attempting to ‘cozy up’ to the former president by resisting the special counsel’s demands — before prosecutors got the goods.”
A federal judge not only imposed a fine on the company for missing a court-ordered deadline, but Politico’s report added that U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell also “lit into Twitter for taking ‘extraordinary’ and apparently unprecedented steps to give Trump advance notice about the search warrant — despite prosecutors’ warnings, backed by unspecified evidence, that notifying Trump could cause grave damage to their investigation.”
The bottom line, however, remains the same: Prosecutors obtained a search warrant to obtain those communications — messages we weren’t sure existed before now — and eventually, they received what they were looking for. Newly available court transcripts confirm that a lawyer for the social media giant told the judge that Twitter had provided prosecutors with “all direct messages” from Trump’s account, including those sent, received, and “stored in draft form.” As a New York Times report added, the lawyer for Twitter also said that the company had found both “deleted” and “nondeleted” direct messages associated with the former president’s account. All of this, of course, makes sense. Twitter — or whatever it is we’re supposed to call it now — is not just a vehicle for posting public messages; it also allows users to send and receive private messages. It stands to reason that investigators scrutinizing a criminal suspect would seek access to his or her emails and text messages, which is why it’s equally sensible that the special counsel’s office sought Trump’s DMs. What we don’t know, at least not yet, is whether those messages included anything provocative or relevant to the prosecution. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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