The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Elon Musk’s X Corp. claiming special counsel Jack Smith violated the First Amendment when he obtained a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s messages on Twitter and then barred the company from disclosing it.
The court acted without comment and there were no noted dissents.
Smith sought Trump’s communications on Twitter, now known as X, as part of the investigation into the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump was indicted last year and his case remains pending in US District Court in Washington.
Twitter, which argued Trump should be allowed to claim executive privilege over the records, initially declined to comply and was fined $350,000. The company didn’t challenge the search warrant itself but rather the gag order.
In its appeal to the Supreme Court, X described the nondisclosure order as an “unprecedented end-run around executive privilege.” The company said the implications were potentially far-reaching if the government attempted to collect information covered by other privileges, such as those involving a doctor and a patient.
The government dismissed those concerns, arguing that Twitter itself couldn’t assert any kind of privilege over the records.
“The Fourth Amendment permits the government to obtain a warrant to search property belonging to an innocent third party as long as the warrant is supported by probable cause that ‘evidence of a crime will be found,’” the special counsel’s office argued.
Musk has endorsed Trump’s reelection bid.
A trial court and a three-judge appeals panel in Washington, DC, agreed with the special counsel’s office that disclosing the warrant could have hurt the grand jury investigation. That investigation ultimately obtained a few dozen direct messages Trump sent and other data connected to the @realDonaldTrump account.
