TOPSHOT – A smartphone shows a tweet by US President Donald Trump saying “Tremendous success … [+]
It was 50 years ago this summer that the audio system in the White House became public knowledge as the result of the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee hearings. However, one such audio recording—later known as the “Smoking Gun” tape—documented the initial stages of the Watergate cover-up, where President Richard Nixon was heard formulating a plan with White House Chief of Staff Harry “Bob” Haldeman to block the investigation.
Once the transcript was made public, Nixon’s political support essentially vanished overnight.
Such is unlikely to happen, regardless of what Special Counsel Jack Smith may have expected to find with former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump. Earlier this year, Smith obtained a search warrant, according to newly revealed court documents.
It was reported by Politico.com on Wednesday that Twitter initially refused to comply with the January 17 warrant, and that resulted in a federal judge holding the company—now called X—in contempt, and levying a $350,000 fine. A federal court of appeals subsequently upheld the fine, and it was only this week that a redacted version of the previously sealed opinion was unsealed that details of the secret court battle were revealed.
Looking For The Smoking Gun Tweet?
Smith had sought information about Trump’s Twitter activity before and during the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. The former president had actively used the account until he was banned from the platform just days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building.
As Politico.com also reported, data obtained from Twitter might have revealed patterns about Trump’s use of the account, whether others had access to it, and even whether there were any draft statements that were unsent.
“While the Special Counsel Jack Smith’s search warrant for former President Trump’s Twitter records is certainly newsworthy, it is also entirely logical and could be valuable for several reasons,” explained technology analyst Charles King of Pund-IT.
“At the time of the warrant, the extent of Trump’s potential legal jeopardy was far less clear than it is today,” King added. “As those issues have become clearer, Smith may have been worried that Trump or someone within his circle may have tried to delete potentially incriminating tweets. He may also have been concerned that Trump’s account might be altered or deleted due to Elon Musk slashing Twitter’s staff and management.”
The Public Record?
Trump’s use of Twitter is well known, and the tweets he sent out—as well as messages to others—could be seen as relevant to Smith’s investigation.
“Trump’s tweets leading up to the Capitol riot could qualify as evidence or provide a chronological timeline that casts light on other evidence and witness statements that Smith and his team are gathering,” King suggested. “All speculation, of course, but news that underscores Smith’s careful methodology.”
Will Tweets And Other Communications Be Achieved?
All business-related communications made by the president are required to be handed over to the National Archives—a point made all too clear in the ongoing investigation into the classified documents that the former president maintained after leaving the White House.
The question now is whether tweets may also need to be maintained as part of the public record.
“There is a long history of contention around President Trump’s Tweet and the National Archives,” said Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.
“Communication by POTUS is supposed to enter the National Archives according to the Presidential Records Act of 1978. Twitter has been a consistent gray area around all of these requirements,” Lampe continued. “My guess is that what the warrant was after were direct messages between the former President and other Twitter users.”
That could be different and possibly not subject to the PRA 1978 law, as direct messages are typically private.
“The other thing this warrant could get which wouldn’t be part of the public record would be deleted tweets, though many of those were eventually archived, and tweets that were composed but not sent,” suggested Lampe.
As many have learned the hard way when an old tweet or post reappears, communications on social media lives forever. In addition, all mediated communication that is stored can be accessed by someone.
“If you are using a platform to send messages, the nature of the technology means the communication has to be stored somewhere,” said Lampe. “That means all electronic communication is subject to search and investigation. The platforms fight this, as Twitter did in this case, because it’s bad for their business to be seen as a poor steward of communication.”
