Special counsel Jack Smith's team obtained a search warrant in January for records related to former President Twitter account, and a judge levied a $350,000 fine on the company for a delay in complying, according to court documents released Wednesday.
The details were included in a decision from the federal appeals court in Washington rejecting Twitter's claim that it should not have been held in contempt or sanctioned.
X, the San Francisco-based platform , sent an automated reply to a request for comment, saying it would respond soon.
The filing says prosecutors got the search warrant directing Twitter to produce information on Trump's account after a court "found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses." The government also obtained a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting Twitter from disclosing the search warrant, the filing says.
The court found that disclosing the warrant could risk that Trump would 鈥渨ould seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation鈥� by giving him 鈥渁n opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior," the filing says.
Twitter objected to the nondisclosure agreement, saying four days after the compliance deadline that it would not produce any of the account information, according to the ruling. The judges write that Twitter 鈥渄id not question the validity of the search warrant鈥� but argued that the nondisclosure agreement was a violation of the First Amendment and wanted the court to assess the legality of the agreement before it handed any information over.
Smith has charged Trump, in , with conspiring to subvert the will of voters and cling to power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump, a Republican, has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of Congress' certification of Biden's win.
Trump says he is innocent and has portrayed the investigation as political motivated. His legal team has indicated it will argue that Trump was relying on the advice of lawyers around him in 2020 and had the right to challenge an election he believed was rigged.
Trump鈥檚 campaign did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
A spokesman for the special counsel鈥檚 office declined to comment on the warrant or what it sought.
Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press
