The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s federal election interference case made a barbed comment about Elon Musk in a hearing about access to the former president’s Twitter account, according to court documents.
Newly unsealed court transcripts, released on Tuesday, reveal that special counsel Jack Smith requested Mr Trump’s direct messages, searches and draft tweets from the social media platform earlier this year.
In a hearing, held on 9 February, prosecutors and lawyers for Twitter sparred over the terms of the request.
At one point, a Twitter lawyer argued that the platform should be allowed to give Mr Trump advance warning that they would be handing over the records to Mr Smith’s office.
It was an argument that led to a frosty response from DC District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who questioned why Twitter – which has since rebranded as X – would wish to take such an “extraordinary” step.
“Is it because the new CEO wants to cozy up with the former president?” she asked about Musk.
It emerged last week that Mr Smith’s office was granted a search warrant back in January to access Mr Trump’s Twitter account as part of its federal criminal investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
But, while the judge granted the request for the warrant, Twitter fought against it for months.
Mr Musk’s company argued that it had a First Amendment right to tell Mr Trump about the search warrant – despite it being common practice in law enforcement investigations for warrants to include non-disclosure orders barring the subject of the search from being informed in advance.
Ultimately, Judge Howell sided with Mr Smith’s office, ordering Twitter to comply with the search warrant and hitting the platform with fines.
On Monday, Mr Trump railed against Mr Smith’s office in a furious Truth Social rant, accusing him of “breaking into my Twitter account without informing me and, indeed, trying to completely hide this atrocity from me”.
The judge took a jab at Twitter boss Elon Musk— (REUTERS)
While the existence of the warrant came to light last week, it was not clear what content prosecutors were seeking before now.
The transcripts revealed that Mr Smith’s office sought and was granted access to “all content, records and other information” related to Mr Trump’s @RealDonald Trump Twitter account from October 2020 – one month before the election – to January 2021 – after he left office.
This included “all tweets created, drafted, favorited/liked,” retweeted or deleted from the account, location data, and details on interactions between Mr Trump and other Twitter users.
On 1 August – months after the search warrant request was granted – Mr Trump was charged with four federal charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights over the investigation.
The Justice Department alleges that Mr Trump and his circle of co-conspirators knew that he had lost the election but launched a multi-prong conspiracy to do everything they could to enable him to cling to power.
This included spreading “knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant’s opponent, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to electoral votes for the Defendant”, the indictment states.
Mr Trump and his allies also allegedly plotted to send slates of fake electors to seven “targeted states” of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin which President Joe Biden had won – to get them to falsely certify the election for Mr Trump.
The indictment also alleges Mr Trump tried to use the DOJ to “conduct sham election crime investigations”, sending letters to the seven states claiming that “significant concerns” had been found in the elections in those states.
As well as the false claims about the election being stolen from Mr Trump, the scheme also involved pushing false claims that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to alter the results – and pushing Mr Pence to “fraudulently alter the election results”.
Jack Smith at a press conference about Trump’s charges— (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
When Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in a violent attack that ended with five deaths, Mr Trump and his co-conspirators “exploited” the incident by “redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince Members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims,” the indictment claims.
While the former president is the only person charged in the case, the indictment also refers to six co-conspirators who worked with him to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
In total, Mr Trump is facing four separate criminal trials after he was indicted by a grand jury in Georgia this week over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election in the state.
Charged under Georgia’s RICO statute, Mr Trump and 18 of his allies and codefendants are accused of running a criminal enterprise with the goal of ensuring that Mr Trump remained in power at all costs.
Mr Trump is also facing New York state charges over hush money payments made prior to the 2016 election and separate federal charges over his alleged mishandling of classified documents on leaving office.
