Elon Musk Begs Supreme Court to Take Up Trump Twitter Files Fight

Elon Musk’s X Corp. has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in its ongoing retaliation against special counsel Jack Smith, who was able to take a deep dive into Donald Trump’s social media account without the former president even knowing it was happening.

In a new filing, the company asked the Supreme Court to determine under what circumstances a tech company can be compelled to turn over information on its users, while being prevented from alerting those users that they’re being investigated.

Last year, Smith’s team was able to use a search warrant to obtain private communications from Trump’s X (formerly Twitter) account, including direct messages, location data, and his drafts from the weeks leading up to the January 6 insurrection. Smith was also able to issue a “nondisclosure order,” which prevented the company from notifying Trump.

X initially delayed responding to this request for information, and shortly afterward challenged the order in U.S. District Court, on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment.

Instead of blocking the warrant as the company had hoped, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell found X in contempt, and as a result, the company was hit by hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Prosecutors had presented evidence to Howell demonstrating that alerting Trump to their investigation would likely endanger the evidence and interfere with Smith’s probe.

X tried to appeal Howell’s decision last July, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the initial ruling. Clearly dissatisfied, the company is taking its troubles to the highest court in the land.

“Dismissing these requests, the courts below diminished the constitutional interests at stake,” the petition said of the decisions of the lower courts. In the filing, X Corp. argued that the information in Trump’s social media account may have been subject to executive privilege. The petition argues that investigatory methods that do not offer the opportunity for a user to assert their privacy privileges may violate other privileged relationships, such as attorney-client, doctor-patient, and journalist-source.

The company is asking the high court to consider whether electronic service providers can be compelled by search warrants before the constitutionality of nondisclosure orders are decided, and whether the First Amendment allows for the “gagging” of such providers “in a highly public investigation” in which the government does not “demonstrate that disclosure would jeopardize the investigation’s integrity” or “disprove the workability of a less-restrictive alternative.”

You might assume that members of Congress, whose job it is to craft legislation, would be the preeminent obeyers of the rule of law. But you’d be incorrect.

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville made that abundantly clear Tuesday, telling Newsmax that Americans should prepare for a civil war following Donald Trump’s conviction by a New York jury.

“People in our caucus … to me, they’re not really taking this as serious as we should,” Tuberville said. “American people need to wake up. This is a war; this is a war on our constitutional rights, our constitutional republic. This is not as much about Donald Trump as it is about the people in this country.”

Tuberville also claimed that Democrats were “anti”-American, insisting that the liberal party was looking to strip citizens of their privacy and censorship rights while conveniently forgetting that it was Republican leadership who pushed through the reauthorization of a domestic spy program in April and who are continuing to press for literary censorship in majority-conservative states such as Florida.

A jury found Trump guilty Thursday on 34 counts of falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in relation to hush-money payments dished out to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to hide information during the 2016 presidential election. It marked the first time in U.S. history that a former president had been convicted of a felony.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced mere days before the Republican National Convention, which has already crafted a contingency plan for nominating the felon even if he’s already behind bars.

Donald Trump’s foot soldiers are trying to set the stage to rig the 2024 election in his favor.

The America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, is backing the lawsuit of an election official in Fulton County, Georgia, who wants to be able to refuse to certify election results.

Julie Adams filed her lawsuit May 22, hoping to access voting records that she claims she was barred from seeing by Fulton County’s election director, Nadine Williams. Adams is also seeking a court ruling on whether her duty to certify election results is up to her discretion.

Adams has long been an election denier. She was a director for the Tea Party Patriots, which organized the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., that preceded the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and also was “southeast regional coordinator” for the Election Integrity Network, according to Rolling Stone. The EIN was founded by a lawyer for the Trump campaign, Cleta Mitchell, who also is a prominent election denier.

It’s an early attempt by Trump’s allies to make sure he wins Georgia in November. In 2020, Trump lost Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes—a margin of just 0.23 percent. Fulton County is a Democratic stronghold in the state, home to the city of Atlanta.

As November nears, this lawsuit foreshadows dangerous actions by Trump and his allies to ensure that he returns to the White House. He is more desperate this time to exact revenge and escape legal consequences, and has yet to face any repercussions for attempting to overturn the results in 2020. Trump himself has warned that “it’s gonna be a bloodbath” if he loses in November (he later claimed he was talking about the automotive industry) and said that 2024 could be the “last election we ever have.”

Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted last year for attempting to overturn Georgia’s election results, and the convicted felon and presumptive Republican presidential nominee has fought the charges every step of the way, most notably trying to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case. Trump’s trial over the Capitol insurrection has also been held up by the Supreme Court, sending the message that his attempts to fix election results in his favor don’t carry any real consequences.

Former Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina roundly debunked Republicans’ core conspiracy to delegitimize Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions—that his conviction is a politically motivated attack from Biden—calling it “one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.” Tacopina’s stinging rebuke was shared during a pre-taped interview with Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation that aired Monday night.

“This is a state case,” said Tacopina. “This is different than the Jack Smith cases. This is not federal prosecution. Joe Biden—or anyone from his Justice Department—has absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. They have no jurisdiction over him. They have no contacts with them. They have no control, certainly, over him. So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard. We know that’s not the case. And even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”

Doubling down, Tacopina added, “People who say that, it’s scary that they really don’t know the law or what they’re talking about.”

Speaking with MSNBC, Tacopina assessed Trump is primarily seeking to use his conviction to raise campaign funds by casting himself as a martyr.

“How is he going to use this as a campaign boost? That’s the only thing he’s thinking, Tacopino said. “He’s clearly going to try now to use this to try to position himself as a martyr, and use this as someone who’s been politically attacked by his opponents, and that the justice system has been politicized. That’s how he’s going to use it.”

Tacopina represented Trump for his E. Jean Carroll civil defamation case and early into Trump’s criminal hush-money case, before he abruptly withdrew from both for unknown reasons.

Trump has spewed a stream of comically ignorant lies about his conviction while seemingly trying to rally his base to violence, and has indicated intent to appeal. If these claims are what he’s going with in pursuit of that appeal, we can reasonably expect it will be swiftly denied.

Representative Eric Swalwell slammed GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, arguing that the blatant hypocrisy in their devoted defense of a freshly convicted Donald Trump was nothing less than cultish. 

“Guys, I’m starting to think you guys are in a cult,” Swalwell said. “That is your right, but it’s not your responsibility. I promise you, that’s not what your constituents would want.”

“So if you believe in states’ rights except when a jury in that state convicts your nominee for president: You might be in a cult. If you claim you back the blue but want to defund the police when the police go to your nominee’s house to retrieve national security secrets: You might be in a cult. If you’re supporting a guy whose felony convictions prevent him from getting security clearance: You might be in a cult,” Swalwell continued.

“And if the guy you’re supporting for president has felony convictions that prevent him from going to Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Dominican Republic …”  

As he spoke, one lawmaker demanded that the California Democrat’s words be taken down. Swalwell continued in an alphabetized list of all the countries to which Trump can no longer travel.

“Egypt, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel …” Swalwell continued, well after his time had expired. “You might be in a cult.” 

Swalwell is no stranger to openly mocking his Republican colleagues. He’s also keeping a running timer on how long it’s been since House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan refused to comply with a subpoena to testify on his involvement in the January 6 insurrection. The counter is currently at 754 days. 

A state panel has smacked down New York Republican Representative Elise Stefanik’s ethics complaint against the judge in Donald Trump’s bank fraud case, a likely fatal blow to her soft campaign to be his vice presidential nominee.  

Stefanik eagerly declared in November that she had filed a complaint against New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron and his law clerk Allison Greenfield, by posting her letter in its apparent entirety to X (formerly Twitter). 

The Republican attacked Engoron and Greenfield for making donations to Democratic political campaigns, alleged that Engoron had “illegally” placed a gag order on Trump, and argued that the judge demonstrated “inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance.” Her decision to post about the complaint was an obvious, if not desperate, stunt to signal to Trump that she is the ideal sycophant to join him in office, if he is elected.

Too bad for Stefanik, because her theatrics appear to have been in vain. According to a document obtained by The Daily Beast, her complaint was quietly rejected by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct in March.  

“The commission dismissed the complaint, having found no basis on the facts presented to commence an investigation,” wrote Robert H. Tembeckjian, the commission’s administrator and counsel, in the panel’s decision.

The Beast reported that it was unclear whether Stefanik was even aware that her ploy had failed. When asked, she reportedly demanded to know how the Beast could assert the complaint had been dismissed. 

In a statement to the outlet, Stefanik’s executive director, Alex DeGrasse, said, “New York’s court system is partisan, corrupt, and rigged. Chairwoman Elise Stefanik and House Republicans will continue to expose the blatant illegal lawfare and weaponization of the government and courts against President Trump.”

While Stefanik’s antics may have fallen flat, and her political aspirations been injured, she is only one small part of the GOP-backed barrage on the judicial system that seeks to hold Donald Trump accountable for his crimes.

President Biden’s executive order to shut down asylum is already drawing criticism—from within the Democratic Party.

Biden issued an executive order Tuesday that will shut down the southern U.S. border if the average number of border encounters exceeds 2,500, which it already has, and only resume them once the number drops to below 1,500. That means the order could go into effect immediately.

Several Democrats have already slammed the plan, which they say ignores established law requiring the granting of asylum to people with a credible fear in their home countries. A lack of legal paths to immigration has led to more people requesting asylum, and to some Democrats, the new restrictions seem similar to Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

“I’m disappointed that this is a direction that the president has decided to take,” Representative Nanette Barragán, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Tuesday morning.

“We should be distinguishing ourselves from Donald Trump on immigration,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told The Washington Post. “We should be offering the contrast.”

Some saw Biden’s order as more tough talk about the border that wouldn’t solve the underlying issues.

“I do not think that shutting down the border, quote unquote, is a remedy that will get us to where we need to be on immigration reform,” said Representative Sylvia Garcia.

Even Democrats in swing districts vulnerable to Republican attacks on immigration aren’t happy with the plan.

“I understand that the Biden administration feels like they need to do something,” said Representative Hillary Scholten, an immigration lawyer in Michigan. “It’s heart-wrenching to see that this is the something that they are choosing, knowing full well that this is not going to come close to solving the problem that we are experiencing.”

Biden has drawn fire for his immigration policies as president, drawing accusations that he has done little to reverse Donald Trump’s widely criticized actions. With Republicans opposing just about anything Biden enacts, he’ll need support from his own party for any plan to hold up. To Representative Alex Padilla, Biden should include more humanitarian provisions, as opposed to tough talk to win over Democrats and the wider public.

“While some people point to how well an orderly and secure border polls, what polls even better is support for dreamers and farmworkers and other essential workers who happen to be undocumented,” said Padilla. “What polls the best is a combination of the policies taken together.”

After years of legal back-and-forths with Donald Trump, porn actress Stormy Daniels has one final message for his (supposedly) better half: Get out while you still can.

In an interview with the U.K.’s Daily Mirror published Monday, Daniels began rattling off reasons that Melania Trump should leave her husband of 19 years.

“He’s a convicted felon,” she began.

“He’s proven to be abusive. He was found liable for assault,” Daniels continued, referring to the outcome of his case with writer E. Jean Carroll.

But Daniels also questioned if she will be “done” with Trump now that the trial has ended, describing him as a “scarlet letter but worse.”

“That’s an orange stain that’s going to be on me for a very long time,” she said.

Still, Daniels is feeling celebratory about the outcome of the trial, adding that Trump had been “unchecked until now, but checkmate, motherfucker.”

A jury found Trump guilty Thursday on 34 counts of falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in relation to hush-money payments dished out to Daniels in an effort to hide information during the 2016 presidential election.

It marked the first time in U.S. history that a former president had been convicted of a felony. Trump will be sentenced on July 11 at 10 a.m., mere days before the Republican National Convention will take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Kenneth Chesebro got smacked with a felony fraud charge by Wisconsin prosecutors on Tuesday. Largely considered the architect of the fake electors plot to flip the 2020 election to Trump, Chesebro was charged alongside Michael Roman, head of Trump’s 2020 Election Day operations, and fellow Trump lawyer James Troupis. All were charged with one count of forgery in the case brought by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Paul, according to court records.

The statute listed for the Trump trio’s charges, “forgery-uttering,” is a Class H felony in Wisconsin, essentially defined as touting bogus official statements or fake legal documents or public records as true while knowing they’re fraudulent.

Chesebro, as part of the fake elector scheme, attempted to send fake certified elector documents—which falsely claimed Wisconsin and Michigan electors chose Trump—to Washington, D.C., ahead of 2020’s presidential electoral certification process. The plot was spoiled when the documents infamously got stuck in the mail, leading to a last-minute scramble by the schemers to get the phony paperwork into the hands of then–Vice President Mike Pence in time to certify election results on January 6, 2021.

Chesebro is also named as a co-conspirator in Georgia’s fake elector charges, where he is cooperating with the state and has pleaded guilty to planning the goofily villainous scheme. Chesebro is reportedly also cooperating with prosecutors in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Tuesday’s charges are a first for Troupis and Roman, who join the vaunted ranks of at least a dozen other Trump lawyers and toadies who conspired to submit fake electors to certify the 2020 election for Trump. Troupis and Chesebro are also being sued by Biden electors in Wisconsin for the plot, where 10 other Republican electors settled a lawsuit in December 2023 forcing them to admit Biden won the 2020 election.

In the latest erosion of personal freedoms at the hands of Republicans, a GOP lawmaker has requested to dig through the personal emails of a private citizen. But it’s OK, because the citizen in question is Dr. Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who Republicans are convinced has done something really wrong, despite his repeated testimony to the contrary.

Last month, Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified before the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic about a disturbing set of emails in which he wrote that he’d been able to skirt requests under the Freedom of Information Act by deleting official correspondence and using his personal Gmail account.

During an interview on Fox Business on Tuesday morning, Representative Brad Wenstrup, the Republican chair of that subcommittee, confirmed that to follow up on Morens’s emails, he intends to dig through Fauci’s personal emails too.

“Dr. Morens said in his emails that, ‘Tony uses Gmail, too. I can contact Tony on Gmail, or I can just walk right into his office, or I can go to his house,’” said Wenstrup. “So, we have asked for Dr. Fauci’s Gmails, and I think it’s important that we get them.”

“Yesterday he said, ‘No, I never did any official business on my Gmail.’ Well, we’re gonna try and find out just as we did with Dr. Morens,” said Wenstrup. The Ohio Republican and foot doctor, who has opposed vaccine mandates, requested Fauci’s personal emails and phone records on May 29.

In his opening remarks before the subcommittee on Monday, Fauci testified that he “knew nothing” about Dr. Morens’s conduct and insisted that the two didn’t really work together. He also tried to put the Gmail rumors to rest.

“To the best of my knowledge, I have never conducted official business using my personal email,” said Fauci, who has previously said he has complied with all of the panel’s requests.

Wenstrup condemned Fauci during the hearing for his role in creating supposedly “oppressive” federal rules to usher Americans through the early days of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, taking aim at mask mandates and social distancing guidelines.

“Americans were aggressively bullied, shamed, and silenced for merely questioning or debating issues such as social distancing, masks, vaccines, or the origins of Covid,” Wenstrup whined.

Rooting through Fauci’s emails seems to be the latest pivot for Republicans, after they tried to pin everything from alleged misconduct to tedious safety measures on the former health official.