X (formerly Twitter) has handed over more than two dozen of Trump's private messages to the election subversion probe.
Thirty-two direct messages from Donald Trump's account on the social media platform were given to special counsel Jack Smith as part of the ongoing probe, according to an unsealed brief filed in May to the US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington DC, reports CNN.
The former president was a voracious user of Twitter before being banned from the platform in the wake of the January 6 riots “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Details of the messages Trump sent on the platform from October 2020 to January 2021, obtained with a search warrant, were included in a brief filed under seal in May.
X's Appeal Denied
X had appealed sanctions against Elon Musk's company for delays in handing the messages to prosecutors.
The social media giant did not want to hand over the messages because of an injunction that prevented the former president from being told about the warrant, as prosecutors were concerned that Trump might use his executive privilege to block it.
In the brief, prosecutors described the 32 messages provided by Twitter as a “minuscule proportion of the total production, and that “Twitter sought to delay compliance with the entirety of the Warrant based on the speculative possibility that a tiny fraction of the total production could, implausibly, contain instances when the President sought to use the direct-messaging function to carry out sensitive and confidential deliberations with trusted advisors within the Executive Branch.”
Trump has been charged with conspiracy to violate civil rights, defraud the government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and attempts to carry out said obstruction during his attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.
A trial date has been set for March 4, the day before the Super Tuesday primaries.
Donald Trump is the only former or sitting president in American history to face criminal charges. He will face 91 counts across four criminal indictments brought by state and federal prosecutors.
Trump's Other Trial Dates
Special Council Jack Smith has also accused Trump of illegally and irresponsibly hoarding classified documents in a toilet and on a stage at his Mar-a-Largo estate in Florida after leaving the Whitehouse in 2020. Trump will face 40 felony charges under the Espionage Act. The trial is due to take place in May 2024.
As well as the charges brought by Mr. Smith, Trump has been charged along with 18 others, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani, in Fulton County, Georgia, with racketeering as part of a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.
The former President has also been charged with falsifying business records in New York after allegedly paying former adult video actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money during the run-up to the 2016 election. The trial is scheduled to start on March 25, 2024.
Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty in every case and recently accused prosecutors of “election interference” and attempting to derail his 2024 presidential election campaign.