New court papers show there were concerns that notifying the former president about a search warrant would have given him “an opportunity to destroy evidence.”
Newly released court filings reveal that a federal judge in the District of Columbia was concerned that Donald Trump would destroy evidence from his personal account on X, formerly Twitter.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unsealed a decision that upheld the D.C. District Court’s ruling granting special counsel Jack Smith’s team a search warrant for @realDonaldTrump as part of the probe into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“Based on ex parte affidavits, the district court found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses,” the filing read. “Moreover, the district court found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump “would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation” by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates.
