Just in a newly unsealed court
document gives us a clue
about how the special counsel
built the case around Donald Trump.
We're back here at the table
with our legal team, starting with you.
Caitlin, Paul, Lance,
you have been reading through this.
What can you tell us?
I have.
So we just got this court
decision from the D.C.
Circuit, the appeals court.
It was a case that was under seal,
very curious what it was.
And now we know it was a case
between the special counsel's office,
the people investigating January six,
and Donald Trump and Twitter.
And what happened was in January,
the special counsel
investigators went to Twitter
and they said, we have a search warrant
and we would like data and records
related to Donald Trump's
Twitter account at real Donald Trump.
At that time,
they didn't comply right away.
Twitter had some sort of hiccups.
They took a little bit of time.
They faced a fine of $350,000
for delaying producing those records.
And then why this ended up in court
is because the Justice Department didn't
want Twitter to tell Donald Trump
that they were seeking this information
and they won that ability
not to have Twitter
disclose to Donald Trump,
the client of Twitter, right.
As the account holder
that this search was going
to be taking place
of his Twitter account.
And the reason is really interesting.
It's outlined here
in the court
that they went
before the special counsel's office long
before believed that
there was reasonable grounds
to say that
if they were to tell Donald Trump
they were doing this
search on his Twitter account,
it could seriously jeopardize
the ongoing investigation.
He could potentially want to destroy
evidence, change
patterns, of behavior or, quote,
notify Confederates.
There's also a footnote in here
about how there was a discussion
of whether he might flee from prosecution
if he knew the search
was being discussed.
The department
ultimately walked that back,
but that was something
that the judge also had to look at.
Would Donald Trump flee
because they wanted
to look at his Twitter OC
What do you make of
this, given your experience
as a prosecutor?
Well, I was just reading
and defense attorney.
Yeah, just reading that opinion.
First of all, it was
that would have been better
if Elon Musk could not fire
this entire legal team.
They might have done better.
They wouldn't have been fired. Right.
Right. Exactly.
It's interesting
because Musk says he's
an advocate of absolutist
in terms of free speech.
And one of their arguments
is that they had a right
to talk about this.
They shouldn't be stopped
from talking about it.
But the opinion
the original court ruling is very sound
because there is a procedure
for when you ask a court,
not a recipient of the subpoena,
not to disclose that information.
From an evidentiary standpoint,
they're looking for this
because ultimately,
if they need
those kinds of tweets
as part of their case,
they need access to the original tweets.
Can I ask you a question
that perhaps is an ignorant one?
What did they need to get
from his Twitter account
that we all didn't see in public
on his Twitter account?
Meaning like Twitter is by nature public?
Do we know the answer to that yet?
I haven't gotten to that part of okay.
34 page opinion. It just came out.
Or maybe it's
because his his Twitter account
was Kant's account was canceled.
So it wasn't all chance
as you have to have the evidence
to have some sort of integrity to it.
And so they do have to get it
from Twitter itself.
They can't just get it from the network.
Right click interest in screaming
public in public statement.
You're quite funny in there.
You're quite familiar with Donald Trump's
the account formerly known
as Donald Trump's Twitter account.
Yeah, I think I still
have nightmares about it.
Yeah.
I mean, obviously he's a prolific poster.
We know that there are posts
that were, you know, around
January six, like be
there will be wild
that prosecutors are very interested in.
It's still amusing to me
the notion that they somehow
thought that trying
to get access to a subpoena
or to his Twitter account was
what was going to make him flee,
because it's not like Donald Trump
did not realize
he was
the center of a
pretty hefty investigation.
And it also makes you wonder,
where is he going to flee
to, like his golf course in Scotland
and then just never come back.
So that strikes me as a little curious.
Okay.
Let's turn to
what is happening in Georgia
or what we believe
will be happening in Georgia.
Shortly,
and that is potentially
a fourth indictment.
This, of course, on the state level.
I want to play
what Donald Trump said
at a campaign event in New Hampshire
about this yesterday.
I'm sorry.
I won't be able to go to Iowa today.
I won't be able to go to
New Hampshire today
because I'm sitting in a courtroom
on bullshit because his attorney general
charged me with something.
I probably have another one.
They say there's a young woman,
a young racist in Atlanta, a racist.
And this is a person
that wants to indict me.
She's got a lot of problems,
but she wants to indict me
to try and run for some other office.
Bonnie Willis, he's speaking about
who is African-American.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
I mean, he has called her racist
before the district
attorney's office is aware of it.
And they sort of brush it off
until it rises to an actual
threat against her,
which she's been getting a lot of.
And, you know, we've already seen
the sort of security
ramped up around the courthouse
and we expect that she's
going to start
making her presentation
before a grand jury
next week in this sprawling investigation
involving Donald Trump,
involving many of his allies
who tried to overturn
the election in Georgia.
And she's already lining up
these witnesses,
not because she needs
new information from them.
They've all testified
before the special grand jury prosecutors
know what they're going to say,
but she wants them there to help
craft this narrative around
what actually transpired
around the 20, 20 election,
what people were doing
to try to overturn it
as she goes to this
grand jury and ask for indictments.
And obviously what her argument
is going to be, assuming
she indicts, is that he,
the former president,
then sitting president
broke state laws in Georgia.
The defense is almost
certainly going to say the Trump defense,
you don't have jurisdiction to do this.
Do you expect it to go
through the federal courts may be immune
to the Supreme Court to help answer that?
I think he'll certainly try to do that.
There's some potential
procedural obstacles to that.
When you're trying to challenge the state
court's ruling.
I mean, jurisdiction courts
generally always have to consider that.
I don't think it's
a very strong argument.
Just the Georgia prosecutor,
why wouldn't she have jurisdiction
over it?
So I don't think
that's really going to go any place.
But that could be an argument
that will make,
you know,
well, we're going
to see all of the arguments
when we
we believe it's going to come soon.
Ish. Next week. Next week.
All right.
Thank you so much for that.
Thanks for the breaking news.