Twitter was forced to pay $350,000 after it tried to thwart Jack Smith's efforts to get Trump's records

• A federal judge forced Twitter to pay $350,000 for initially refusing to turn over records related to Trump.

• Special counsel Jack Smith's team had filed a search warrant for records related to @realDonaldTrump.

• The previously unknown legal fight was revealed on Wednesday.

A federal judge forced Twitter to pay $350,000 after it was slow to comply with special counsel Jack Smith's search warrant for records related to former President Donald Trump.

Politico, which first broke the news, obtained newly unsealed documents that show how Smith's team sent a search warrant for records related to @realDonaldTrump in January. The request was related to Smith's investigation of Trump's conduct following the 2020 election.

Smith's grand jury later indicted Trump on four charges related to efforts to overturn the election and the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges.

According to the newly released document, Twitter sought to fight Smith's move, especially the requirement that they could not inform Trump of the search warrant's existence. A D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel later upheld a lower court's decision that protected Smith's request over Twitter's First Amendment defense.

Trump, who apparently was still not aware of the request, reacted harshly to the news that federal investigators were searching his Twitter account.

"Just found out that Crooked Joe Biden's DOJ secretly attacked my Twitter account, making it a point not to let me know about this major 'hit' on my civil rights," Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth.

Special counsel spokesperson Peter Carr declined to comment on Trump's response.

Twitter's resistance to hand information over to investigators occurred after the government said it "faced difficulties"  serving the warrant and nondisclosure order to the company. The document notes that the government tried to serve Twitter with the warrant and order using its proprietary website for legal requests, however, the website was "inoperative" for several days.

It's still not entirely clear what Smith was seeking to obtain from the search warrant. Portions of the federal appellate opinion written by Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, remain redacted. The redactions seem to be related to the contents of the search warrant.

Pan's opinion does cite "ex parte submissions" reviewed by the Court of Appeals that support the lower court's decision in Smith's favor. Smith's team had argued that if Twitter were to inform Trump of the search warrant it would have "'seriously jeopardize[d] the ongoing investigation'" by giving him 'an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior,'" Pan's opinion quotes from the district court's ruling.

It's not clear if Twitter CEO Elon Musk was aware of Smith's search warrant. Twitter was forced to pay the $350,000 fine after the district court found that it failed to turn over the records to Smith's team by the deadline.

Read the original article on Business Insider