The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has suggested that former President Donald Trump may be a flight risk and that a nondisclosure order issued to Twitter, now known as X, by the Department of Justice under President Biden was intended to prevent Trump from fleeing prosecution or destroying evidence.
The court's opinion, which was argued in May and published on Wednesday, cited the Stored Communications Act as allowing the government to seek a nondisclosure order that prohibits service providers from notifying anyone of the existence of a warrant or order for a specified period of time.
According to the court opinion, a nondisclosure order must be entered if there is reason to believe that notifying the existence of the warrant or order would endanger someone's life or physical safety, result in flight from prosecution, lead to the destruction or tampering of evidence, intimidate potential witnesses, or seriously jeopardize an investigation or unduly delay a trial.
The court also noted that the lower court, whose decision X was appealing, found reason to believe that Trump would flee from prosecution. However, the government later admitted that it had mistakenly included flight from prosecution as a reason in its application, and the District court did not rely on the risk of flight in its analysis.
On January 17, the Department of Justice applied for and obtained a search warrant for Trump's X account, along with a nondisclosure order that prevented X from disclosing the existence of the warrant.
The court opinion stated that the District court found reasonable grounds to believe that disclosing the warrant to Trump would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation by giving him an opportunity to destroy evidence, change behavior patterns, or notify Confederates. The warrant required X to provide the requested information by January 27, and the nondisclosure order remained in effect for 180 days.
X initially objected to the nondisclosure order, arguing that it violated the First Amendment, and initially did not comply with the warrant. However, the social media platform eventually complied, albeit missing the deadline, and was fined $350,000.
The search warrant is related to Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into alleged attempts by Trump to overturn the 2020 election. Earlier this month, an indictment was issued against Trump, charging him with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction, and conspiracy against the right to vote and have one's vote counted.
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