Granted, the kinds of information Smith sought are speculative at this point. What’s not speculative is the secretive process by which Smith’s subpoenaing of Twitter played out.

“The government also obtained a nondisclosure agreement that had prohibited Twitter from disclosing the search warrant,” reports the A.P. So, Twitter was not allowed to even reveal—publicly or to Trump—that federal prosecutors were requesting records at all.

“The court found that disclosing the warrant could risk that Trump could jeopardize the ongoing investigation by giving him ‘an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior’ or notify his allies,” notes the A.P.

But Smith was very publicly appointed to investigate Trump back in November 2022. By mid-January 2023, when Smith obtained the Twitter search warrant, Trump had already long known that he was under investigation—which makes the idea that this was about stopping Trump from destroying evidence seem suspect.

[The search warrant itself is understandable, given the context of the investigation, but not the secrecy. Secret search warrants should be rare and only issued in cases of grave security risks. I hope Elon Musk appeals the fine to the Supreme Court to give them a chance to review this process, more for the sake of less-wealthy targets of criminal probes than for Trump or Musk. — Ed]