Supreme Court won’t take up challenge to Jack Smith’s Trump Twitter data access

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a challenge by social platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to court rulings that forced the platform to turn over data on former President Trump’s account to special counsel Jack Smith. 

Early last year, Smith obtained a secret warrant for Trump’s account on X, where Trump posted prolifically during his White House term, as part of prosecutors’ federal election interference investigation.

X was prohibited from informing the former president about the warrant. It only became public last summer, after Trump was charged with four felonies in the case. He pleaded not guilty. 

The company challenged the order, arguing the records were potentially covered by executive privilege and not being able to tell Trump violated the First Amendment. Court filings show X at one point was fined $350,000 for not timely turning over Trump’s data.

Lower courts rejected the social platform’s arguments and agreed with Smith that disclosing the warrant could hurt the grand jury investigation. 

X brought its fight to the Supreme Court, hoping to prevent the process from happening again, insisting most similar challenges never reach the high court and the case was a “rare opportunity” to review the issue. 

“If the Court does not grant this petition, it could be decades (if ever) before it gets another clean vehicle to resolve the important and recurring questions presented,” X wrote in its petition. 

The Supreme Court declined to take up X’s appeal in a brief, unsigned order.

The company was represented by Seth Waxman, who served as U.S. solicitor general under former President Clinton, and other attorneys at WilmerHale. 

Smith’s team was led by Michael Dreeben, another veteran Supreme Court advocate. He told the justices to turn away the appeal, contending the dispute was moot and no executive privilege issue actually existed. 

“If review of the underlying legal issues were ever warranted, the Court should await a live case in which the issues are concretely presented,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. 

The Supreme Court has previously gotten involved in Smith’s prosecution. In July, the high court sided with Trump by granting him broad criminal immunity for official presidential acts as he defends against his charges.