A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a request to reconsider its ruling granting special counsel Jack Smith’s team access to former President Donald Trump’s X account, including his direct messages.
X had tried to block prosecutors from obtaining that information, but a three-judge panel rejected that request in July.
The company pleaded with the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit the matter, which the court declined to do on Tuesday.
“After considering the appellant’s request for a rehearing en banc, the response thereto, the amicus brief filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in support of a rehearing en banc, and the absence of a request for a vote by any member of the court, the petition is ordered to be denied,” the court wrote.
The four conservative justices on the 11-member court indicated they would have granted the review en banc.
“Smith directed a search warrant against Twitter and obtained a confidentiality order that prevented Twitter from informing President Trump about the search,” the dissenting justices wrote.
Donald Trump enjoyed a massive electoral victory in Iowa on Monday. REUTERS
“The district court and this court permitted this settlement without any consideration of the consequent executive privilege issues raised by this unprecedented search.”
Smith’s team had filed a subpoena against X in January last year for records derived from Trump’s account on the platform.
The company suspended Donald Trump’s account after the Capitol riot. REUTERS
Prosecutors sought material to support the four-count 2020 election interference case pending against the 77-year-old.
X received at least $350,000 in fines for resisting the subpoena, court documents revealed. The company regretted not being able to inform Trump of the situation.
X unsuccessfully argued before the three-judge panel that prohibiting him from notifying his user of a search warrant contravened the First Amendment.
Jack Smith sought the records as part of the pending 2020 election case against Donald Trump. fake images
Ultimately, the company turned over the information to prosecutors, according to court records.
Before the three-judge panel took up the case, a lower court judge determined that revealing the order would give Trump an “opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify the confederates.”
The material obtained from Trump’s largely inactive account on the platform includes location data, draft posts, searches and more.
One of the judges noted that the trove of data “included 32 direct messages sent by President Trump.”
Once a serial Twitter poster, Trump has since used Truth Social as his preferred platform to unleash his various rants and other thoughts.
The 45th president had been expelled from X following the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, but was allowed to return after Tesla mogul Elon Musk took power.
Trump has only made one post on
Trump has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to the four-count indictment, as well as all other criminal cases against him.
At the moment, his legal team is fighting to have the criminal accusation dismissed on the grounds of presidential immunity.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn