Andrew Kelly, Gaelen Morse/Reuters
- In January, federal prosecutors obtained a search warrant to obtain information from Trump's personal Twitter account.
- Twitter's legal team argued that it needed to inform Trump of the warrant.
- The judge asked if this was a result of Twitter owner Elon Musk trying to "cozy up" to Trump.
A federal judge wondered aloud during a hearing with Twitter's counsel if Elon Musk, the company's owner, was trying to "cozy up" with former President Donald Trump by slowing the company's response to Special Counsel Jack Smith's demands.
In January, as part of the investigation into the former president's alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Smith and his team obtained a search warrant for records from Twitter regarding Trump's personal account, @realDonaldTrump.
News of the search warrant broke on August 9, though it was not clear at the time what data, Smith and his team were working to obtain.
In a federal court filing of a transcription of a hearing with US District Judge Beryl Howell and the counsels for both Twitter and the government, Howell excoriated Twitter's lawyer for repeatedly insisting that Trump needed to be alerted about the warrant, an action she said the company doesn't normally take when prosecutors get search warrants into users' accounts.
Howell asked Twitter's legal team if the company's demand to inform the former president of the warrant was made solely to get on good terms with Trump, which counsel denied.
"Is it because the CEO wants to cozy up with the former President, and that's why you are here?"
Later, Howell also asked Twitter's counsel if its attempt to alert Trump about the warrant was "to make Donald Trump feel like he is a particularly welcomed new renewed user of Twitter."
Twitter's team simply said it has "no interest other than litigating its constitutional rights"
Howell ended up fining Twitter $350,000 for taking too long to comply with the warrant. Prosecutors were ultimately able to obtain any direct messages sent or received by the account, which devices were connected to it, and more.
Trump was a former Twitter power user before he was banned from the site in January 2021 in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection. He now posts exclusively on Truth Social, a social media platform created by a Trump-founded media and tech company, despite his Twitter account getting reinstated in November 2022 after Musk bought the platform.
Musk did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.