At issue was prosecutors’ decision to serve the warrant along with a “nondisclosure order” to prohibit Twitter from notifying Trump about the warrant’s existence. Twitter complained that the order violated the First Amendment and that the federal judge overseeing the matter at the time — U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell — should have blocked enforcement of the search warrant until the objection was resolved.
The appeals court endorsed Howell’s decision, saying that even disclosing part of the warrant to Trump would have jeopardized the ongoing criminal investigation.