Social media giant requests that SCOTUS review process Jack Smith used to get Trump Twitter files

The social media giant X filed a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, requesting a review of the process that special counsel Jack Smith used to obtain records on the site that belonged to former President Donald Trump. 

Federal courts ordered Elon Musk and his company to turn over Trump's records on the site to Smith and his team, without the consent or knowledge of the former president. This also meant that Trump could not appeal the order, or attempt to block it. The original order was approved by D.C. District Judge Beryl Howell, who endorsed the nondisclosure order, because prosecutors argued informing Trump could endanger the information the prosecution was trying to obtain. 

Now the platform is hoping that the Supreme Court will prevent this kind of incident from occurring again, according to Politico. If the Supreme Court does change the process, it could change the way that search warrants are delivered to users in the future.

The social media company claimed that some of the information obtained in the search warrant could have been protected under executive privilege. For other users, if they are not notified when the government wants to review their data, they would would not be able to invoke doctor-patient confidentiality or journalist-source confidentiality that they otherwise would have been entitled to. 

In Trump's case, Smith was looking for Trump's Twitter records, searches, and communications that took place between October of 2020, and January of 2021, while he was still in the Oval Office.

"As a result, 'for the first time in American history,' a court 'ordered disclosure of presidential communications without notice to the President and without any adjudication of executive privilege,'" X said in its filing to the Supreme Court.

The plea to the Supreme Court comes after the X Corporation tried to get the ruling overturned in a D.C. Appeals Court, but the original ruling from Howell was upheld. The four conservative justices on the Appeals Court dissented.