Twitter pushed back against the warrant but was eventually compelled to comply, unsealed court records show.
The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, provided 32 direct messages from President Donald Trump’s account to Special Counsel Jack Smith in response to a secret search warrant.
Mr. Smith obtained the warrant in January as part of an investigation into President Trump’s effort to challenge the results of the 2020 election. He has since indicted the former president with a conspiracy to obstruct the collection and counting of electoral votes.
Twitter pushed back against the warrant but was eventually compelled to comply, according to records from the District of Columbia federal appeals court first unsealed on Aug. 9.
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Twitter’s lawyers argued that they didn’t need to comply with the warrant until the courts resolved its challenge of a nondisclosure order that required the company to keep the warrant secret for 180 days.
Mr. Smith, however, successfully moved to have Twitter held in contempt for noncompliance, ultimately having the court impose a $350,000 fine.
Twitter appealed the ruling in March, but a three-judge panel of the DC appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision in July.
On Sept. 1, X appealed the matter to the full