Smith Requests X Records for Everyone Interacting with Trump

Special Counsel Jack Smith is really pushing the limits of how far he can take his investigative powers in the January 6 case against Donald Trump.

Reports broke this week that Smith's warrant request was that X provide him with information not only regarding Donald Trump’s account but also the information of all the accounts that interacted with Trump.

This was to include accounts that only liked or reposted Trump’s content.

We Want It All

When a request for the data on the warrant was first made, X declined to honor the request.

The company was then fined $350,000 for violating the order.

When the warrant was eventually released, more than half the pages were completely redacted.

On the pages that were not redacted, Smith had requested information directly related to Trump’s actions, such as advertising information and ad topic preferences.

In addition, the warrant states, “All information from the ‘Connect’ or ‘Notifications’ tab for the account, including all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by the account, as well as all tweets that include the username associated with the account (i.e. ‘mentions’ or ‘replies).”

X was also ordered not to mention the search order to Trump.

Musk’s company tried to fight the order in court but lost. Special Counsel Jack Smith countered the argument, stating, “There is reason to believe notification to the former president, a sophisticated actor with an expansive platform, would result in a statutorily cognizable harm.

“The [Non Disclosure Order] was granted based on facts showing that notifying the former president would result in the destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, or other serious jeopardy to an investigation or delaying of trial.”

Trump had been barred from what was then called Twitter for inflammatory comments he had made.

When Musk took over the platform, he eventually reinstated Trump’s account, but Trump has chosen to remain solely on Truth Social. However, there is an agreement in place between Trump and Truth Social that if he chooses to post on X, there must be a lead time given to Truth Social before it can be posted on X.