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| Supreme Court justices don't offer any explanation as they turn away Elon Musk and X's complaints about Jack Smith warrant for Trump's DMs in Jan. 6 probe |
| 2024-10-08 |
| [LawAndCrime] Months after Elon Musk’s X Corp. urged the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to find that special counsel Jack Smith unlawfully forced the social media microblogging site formerly known as Twitter to hand over evidence of former Donald Trump’s “private communications” without the former president’s knowledge of the Jan. 6 probe-related action, the high court on Monday refused to take up the case and offered no explanation for the denial. Within the 50-page orders list and a section cataloguing the cases denied certiorari was X Corp. v. United States, a now failed petition that was brought in late May. As Law&Crime reported at the time, X and Musk had argued that Smith orchestrated an “unprecedented end-run around executive privilege” and the First Amendment to keep Trump unaware — through a 180-day nondisclosure order — of a warrant seeking private messages his @realDonaldTrump account sent and received. The petition from X asked the justices to answer two questions: 1. Whether an electronic communications service provider can be compelled to produce potentially privileged user communications before adjudication of the provider’s First Amendment challenge to a nondisclosure order that prohibits it from notifying the user and before the user had notice and an opportunity to assert privilege, including executive privilege. The justices confirmed Monday that they will answer neither of these questions. “The first claim misapprehends the requirements of the SCA and the First Amendment; erroneously seeks to inject unfounded executive-privilege claims into its argument; and wrongly asserts a circuit conflict. The second claim presents a factbound and meritless objection to the ruling of both courts below upholding the nondisclosure order,” the government said. “Even if the issues petitioner raises otherwise warranted review, this case would not be an appropriate vehicle: the underlying dispute is moot and no executive-privilege issue actually existed in this case. If review of the underlying legal issues were ever warranted, the Court should await a live case in which the issues are concretely presented. The petition for a writ of certiorari should therefore be denied.” |
| Posted by:NN2N1 |