In August, it was revealed that Special Counsel Jack Smith sought access to former and potentially future President Donald Trump's Twitter (now X) account. Then it was revealed that these included direct messages and tweets that were drafted, deleted, liked, or retweeted. As more continues to come out, as it did last week, we now know that Smith sought access to those accounts that Trump interacted with from October 2020 to January 2021.
"The highly specific request potentially implicates millions of users on the platform, now known as X, just because they liked or retweeted a Trump post," the Washington Examiner highlighted. In a recent episode of "The Verdict," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and co-host Ben Ferguson delved further into just how unsettling such a request from Smith is, with Ferguson warning about "an enemies list," with the senator concurring "that's exactly what they're compiling."
Given how many users the heavily redacted search warrant could affect, Cruz not only called the request from Smith "completely outrageous," but also warned that the Biden Justice Department wants information about you." This could even include both Cruz and Ferguson.
As the senator also explained, there's specific information being sought after in this "wildly overbroad" request. The Biden DOJ wants to know it and they're also asking for, 'all associated logs, and metadata,' which could cover location data, as well. And so, understand that they're asking for the physical location of every person who said something positive about Donald Trump on Twitter, between October of 2020 and January of 2021," Cruz mentioned.
Not only is that "wildly overbroad," the senator shared, "it is not related to anything remotely within the scope of the indictment and what they're trying to prosecute Trump for." Smith has charged Trump over his handling of classified documents as well as the events on and leading up to January 6. Cruz used such a request as one more example of how "this is a political fishing expedition."
To really drive the point home, Cruz again emphasized that "they want to know, every American, every American citizen, every American voter, who dares say something positive about Trump, the Biden DOJ wants to know your name."
The charges against Trump have been decried as election interference ahead of the 2024 presidential election, especially is Trump is considered the frontrunner for the nomination. He also has a lead against President Joe Biden in a hypothetical rematch of 2020.
Ferguson spoke to even more concerns, though, which is that such a request from Smith is what one would see from dictatorships.
"This is something that you see in other countries like China, for example, and Russia, for example, and other nations where you have dictators and tyrants where they will, 100 percent, constantly be tracking following and looking at every word that the citizens are saying," Ferguson offered.
It's also not just Trump and not just the users who interacted with him, but the platform itself. Twitter, now X Corp., delayed complying with the request, and was thus fined $350,000.
Ferguson highlighted other "shocking" parts about the warrant to continuously emphasize its radical nature. "What's also shocking about this warrant, and I do think we need to remind people of exactly how radical and who this Special Counsel Jack Smith is, because the warrant, senator, also requests, 'all IP addresses associated with the president,' he was a president that time, 'his account, as well as a list of all devices used to log into it.'"
Ferguson mentioned such a point to highlight how "this means that any staffer, any aide who logged into the account would have the information divulged to the special prosecutor, and this isn't after Donald Trump left office," but "is spying on the President and his staff while he was the president of the United States of America."
Then, again, it's not surprising given what Cruz reminded listeners of.
"Well, look, and this is very much consistent with the abuse of power we've seen from the Biden DOJ and from Democrats. The four indictments against Donald Trump are all about weaponizing the Department of Justice, weaponizing local Democrat DAs to go after and attack the leading candidate for president on the Republican side right now," Cruz offered.
"And, you know, this is very much also in the spirit of the abusive Fulton County indictment where the prosecutor there alleges that they've indicted a number of people on RICO counts and the basis for that or one of the significant bases they rely upon it are individual tweets that Trump sent," Cruz mentioned when it comes to the fourth indictment brought against Trump, by DA Fani Willis. "And the theory is that the President of the United States sending a tweet was somehow racketeering, that it violated the RICO laws," which Cruz called "wacky stuff."
Criticizing Willis' case further, Cruz offered "this is not 'oh, that's a reasonable argument' that I mean, saying that the President of the United States by sending a tweet is committing a felony is utterly bizarre, and it demonstrates a contempt for free speech," which has been a criticism of both Smith's and Willis' election interference case against Trump.
"Look, the President of the United States has a free speech right, to send tweets. You may not like his tweet; you don't have to read his tweets if you don't like him," Cruz continued. Although he didn't reference Trump Derangement Syndrome by name, the senator gave a pretty accurate description as he noted that Democrats' "brains are broken."
"They hate him so much, that they now believe apparently that his sending a tweet is a criminal act. And they also want to know, if you send a tweet and by the way, on the same theory, I don't know if maybe retweeting Trump, in their twisted world is a criminal act," Cruz continued, bringing it once more to the concern of how such a request from Smith could affect millions of users. "What it demonstrates is a political obsession, a willingness to abuse power, a grotesque overbreadth, and a complete contempt for free speech and the First Amendment."
Although Ferguson and Cruz had raised considerable concerns for how such a request would affect supporters of Trump, Ferguson raised the point that this could come back to bite those who interacted with Trump to show their displeasure with what he was posting.
"Look, you've done this, I've done this, I've retweeted people that I disagree with to bring light to something that they've said that I think is egregious or just incompetent or maybe even just laughable," Ferguson pointed out. "I shouldn't be dragged into a special counsels, you know, obsession over that individual just because I, on a public forum, retweeted someone that I disagree with," he continued, further highlighting free speech concerns. "I've retweeted AOC and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and Joe Biden countless times with things that they've said and other liberals and the media that I've retweeted before that shouldn't give them the right to then come look at what I've been doing because somehow, it's connected to that individual."
Attorney General Merrick Garland deserves some of the blame, too, as Cruz sees it. "And by the way, that's why Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith to that position because they want to, they want to frustrate democracy."
The senator also called it "amazing" how "the radical left has an almost Freudian projection" in that "whatever they accuse you of doing is in fact what they are doing."
"So, the standard Democrat talking point nowadays is they're 'defending democracy!' They're defenders of democracy that's what this election is about, Joe Biden loves saying that," Cruz reminded. "The reason for these indictments is because the Democrats are terrified of democracy. The reason for these indictments is the Democrats are terrified that the voters, come November, will go in and vote for Donald Trump. And so, they're trying to use the justice system to destroy the leading Republican candidate. Why? Because they want to interfere with the election. They want to stop democracy from operating," he continued, returning to the concern that Smith's indictments amount to election interference.
The Biden reelection campaign has ramped up the "democracy" narrative against Trump. Biden also went with such an issue as a line of attack against his political enemies, as he memorably did in a speech from September of last year. Last November, when Democrats performed better than expected during the midterms, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), heavily condemned the tactic, but offered he believed it helped Democrats.
Biden DOJ Executes Search Warrant to Compile an ENEMIES LIST of Everyone Who Has Ever LIKED a Trump Tweet, plus Fireworks on Senate Judiciary Committee.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 1, 2023
Don’t miss this new episode of Verdict where @benfergusonshow and I break it all down.https://t.co/E3dbDH5qrW
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