'There's no legitimate argument': Ex-prosecutor explains Twitter's 'unusual' Jack Smith response
August 09, 2023
A legal expert said Wednesday that Donald Trump’s claim that special counsel Jack Smith’s search of his social media account violated his First Amendment rights is without merit.
Smith earlier this year obtained a search warrant for the former president’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, and the company initially pushed back on the Justice Department’s warrant, prompting a judge to hold the company now called X in contempt and fining it $350,000.
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti during an appearance on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” said “there’s no legitimate argument” that supports the former president’s claim.
Tapper asked Mariotti, “Trump seems to be claiming that this search warrant violated his First Amendment rights, is there a legitimate legal argument there? Even if you don't agree with it, is there a legitimate argument?”
“No, there's no legitimate arguments,” Mariotti said.
“Search warrants can be executed and in fact that's what we expect our law enforcement to do, we expect them to go to a judge and to obtain a search warrant if there are records to be seized."
“That's what government prosecutors should be doing, and so this wasn't a request, just to be clear, I want to clarify that from a moment ago, this was a lawful order.”
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Mariotti called efforts to thwart such an order “very unusual.”
“As somebody who represents many large companies, it is very unusual for a company to expend resources and hire lawyers to try to fight an order, you know, preventing disclosure of materials that are being produced as a result of a lawful search warrant,” Mariotti said.
“Very unusual for a company to do that.”
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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