Read the Full Unsealed Court Documents on Trump’s Twitter

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 investigation sought a large collection of President Donald Trump’s deleted tweets, direct messages and Twitter location data, according to newly unsealed court documents.

Over 200 pages of court records on Smith’s search for internal files related to the former president’s Twitter account were unsealed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday.

Trump was once a prolific user of the social media platform, which owner Elon Musk recently renamed X, but his account has been inactive since shortly after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Smith obtained a search warrant for Trump’s account information in January 2023 as part of his investigation into the former president’s attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election and his actions leading up to the January 6 attack.

A tweet from former President Donald Trump is displayed during a hearing of the House January 6 committee in Washington, D.C., on June 16, 2022. Over 200 pages of court records related to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s quest to obtain information on Trump’s Twitter account were unsealed by a federal court on Tuesday. Drew Angerer

Twitter initially stalled on providing the account information to Smith, resisting on First Amendment grounds that a nondisclosure order prevented the company from telling Trump about the search warrant. Information was handed over after U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell found the company in contempt and fined it $350,000 in February.

The records released on Tuesday, which consist of court hearing transcripts and filings related to the warrant, show that Smith sought all records related to Trump’s account—including direct messages, deleted tweets and location data—dating from October 2020 to January 2021.

Read all of the unsealed documents below:

Newsweek reached out for comment to X via email on Tuesday night.

One of the filings included in the documents indicates that the government argued in favor of the nondisclosure order on the basis that Trump learning of the Twitter search warrant “would result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, or other serious jeopardy to this investigation.”

Trump lashed out at Smith in a Truth Social post on Monday, calling the special counsel “deranged” and a “lowlife,” while describing the legal process of obtaining the search warrant as an effort to “break in” to his Twitter account.

“How dare lowlife prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, break into my former Twitter account without informing me and, indeed, trying to completely hide this atrocity from me,” Trump wrote. “What could he possibly find out that is not already known. Just like the early morning raid of Mar-a-Lago!”

“Why isn’t the DOJ raiding Crooked Joe Biden, the most CORRUPT (and Incompetent!) President in the history of the United States?” he added.

The former president was indicted on four felony counts related to Smith’s January 6 investigation earlier this month. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and claims to be the victim of a “witch hunt” and “election interference” as he seeks a return to the White House as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

Tweets cited in the 45-page indictment included one that Trump sent in December 2020, urging his supporters to attend “wild” election protests in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. Another tweet blasted former Vice President Mike Pence for lacking “the courage” to overturn Trump’s loss as the siege on the Capitol unfolded.