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The social network
Previous court records showed that the special prosecutor was concerned that If Trump knew about the order to access his account, he could reveal it to the publicsomething they said “could precipitate violence as occurred after the public disclosure of the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago,” according to CNN.
The revealed documents shed new light on the scope of the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his electoral defeat in the 2020 election.
Records show Smith’s office obtained a total of 32 direct messages from Trump’s account as part of its investigation, and A copy of the tax file also released Friday shows the breadth of information prosecutors were seeking.according to The Hill.
Prosecutors’ 71-page filing, submitted to the court in April but not revealed until Friday, offers new details about why Smith’s team feared alerting Trump to the matter.
The secret battle to obtain Trump’s Twitter records was revealed in an opinion in August, showing that Twitter, now known as X, was fined $350,000 for failing to comply with a court order to hand them over.
Much of that behavior was manifested publicly, including on Trump’s Twitter account, where promoted false claims of massive fraud and urged government officials to stop certifying the results.
The digital platform was forced to hand over those records after receiving an order from the District of Columbia Court in January by the office of Jack Smith, the special prosecutor in charge of these investigations, according to NBC News.
The order sought the content and other information related to communications sent or received by the former president’s account (@realDonaldTrump) between October 2020 and January 2021, including direct messages.
The court document states that The 32 messages delivered represent only “a tiny fraction” of all the data provided by Twitterbut what other information it is has not been leaked.
Trump was not informed because the Court of the District of Columbia, in which Washington is located, found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the former president “would jeopardize the ongoing investigation” by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence.”
The prosecution accuses Trump of having deliberately lied when denouncing false electoral fraud and of having devised a plan to reverse the results of the elections that led to the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a mob of his followers attacked the Capitol. Congress to try to prevent the ratification of Joe Biden’s victory.
The investigation in Washington led to the indictment of the former president, who is also criminally accused in New York for irregular payments to bribe porn actress Stormy Daniels, in Miami for having illegally taken classified documents when leaving power, a case also investigated by the Prosecutor Smith, and in Georgia again for electoral interference.
The trials in Washington and New York are scheduled to begin respectively on March 4 and 24, while the one in Florida is scheduled for May 20 and the one in Georgia does not yet have a date.
Keep reading:
– Prosecutor’s Office asks judge to impose a stricter gag order on Trump in the January 6 case
– Judge prohibits Trump from disclosing confidential information about his case to overturn 2020 elections
– Trump is indicted on criminal charges for his interference in the 2020 elections