Twitter Paid $350,000 in Fines for Delaying Jack Smith’s Search Warrant For Trump’s Twitter Account 

A new court document released Wednesday tied to Jack Smith's investigation into Donald Trump's interference with the 2020 election shows that the special counsel obtained a search warrant for the former president's dormant Twitter account, and that the company didn't immediately cooperate.

Smith sought the warrant in early January for data and records connected to the @realDonaldTrump account that Trump used throughout his 2016 presidential campaign and then during his White House term before being banned from the social network two days after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Twitter, now called X, only complied with Smith's search warrant three days after a deadline. U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell also held the company in contempt of court, and X was ultimately charged a $350,000 fine, according to the opinion unsealed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Federal prosecutors filed a nondisclosure order that prevented Twitter from telling Trump or the general public about Smith's warrant. The company argued that was a violation of Trump's First Amendment rights.

"Twitter initially delayed the production of the materials required by the search warrant while it unsuccessfully litigated objections to the nondisclosure order," the unsealed but still-redacted version of the appeals court's opinion read.

The D.C. Circuit's unanimous 3-0 opinion issued Wednesday backed Howell's decision and found that letting Trump know about the warrant would jeopardize Smith's wider criminal investigation, which has since resulted in two separate felony federal indictments of the former president.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Florence Pan, an appointee of President Joe Biden, authored the ruling that was initially decided under seal on July 18. Judges J. Michelle Childs, another Biden appointee, and Cornelia Thayer Pillard, an Obama appointee, joined Pan in the ruling.