Elon Musk’s Twitter refused to comply with a federal search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for the social media company, according to court documents released Wednesday.Special counsel Jack Smith obtained the warrant in mid-January and served the warrant to Twitter, now called “X,” alongside a “nondisclosure order.” The order barred the social media platform from informing Trump that his account would be searched.After being ser

After being served the warrant, however, the company took several days to respond. Twitter then filed a motion to vacate the nondisclosure order on February 2, arguing the order violated the First Amendment, and refused to comply. The company demanded that U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who was overseeing the case at the time, block enforcement of the search warrant until the matter was resolved.

Instead, Howell found Twitter in contempt and fined the platform $50,000 a day, doubling for each day of noncompliance. Twitter still did not comply with the warrant until February 9, resulting in a total of $350,000 in fines.

Twitter appealed the ruling, but in July, an appeals court upheld Howell’s decision, the documents released Wednesday show.

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
    927·
    1 year ago

    I despise Elon but I’m also pretty sure the original owners of Twitter would have dragged their heels too.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      261·
      1 year ago

      maybe, maybe not. They probably would have filed the appeal sooner. As it is, these requests- including the NDA are pretty standard requests, even if the subject is donald trump.

      that said, though, I’m going to amuse myself imagining that jack Smith got the warrant and then logged on to trump’s account using ‘MAGA2020’ for the password.