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Kyle Cheney Profile picture
@kyledcheney
Aug 16, 2023 • 13 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
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NEW: Jack Smith obtained a stunning amount of Trump’s data from Twitter — DMs (yes, there were DMs), location info, draft tweets and more — newly unsealed court docs show. https://t.co/ZPNSswoF3Wpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…

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But that’s just the start. The documents show Twitter mounted an unprecedented effort to impede the search warrant by notifying Trump — prompting an incredulous Judge Beryl Howell to wonder if Elon Musk was trying to “cozy up” to him. https://t.co/mVlasM13bOpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…
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Prosecutors repeatedly described Trump learning about their search warrant for his Twitter data as a serious threat to the investigation and to witnesses. https://t.co/suzboQeuKtpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…
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The bottom line: Twitter pleaded to inform Trump about a search warrant in a way that it apparently never did in its 17-year existence with any other user. It did this despite having no knowledge of the basis for the warrant or nondisclosure order. politico.com/news/2023/08/1…
MORE: Twitter’s basis for this was the prospect that some DMs could be covered be executive privilege. Howell and prosecutors were incredulous that Trump would be DMing close senior advisers to do official business https://t.co/QJfI5XyMG0politico.com/news/2023/08/1…

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Twitter says it doesn’t read users’ DMs but determined Trump sent/received them based on storage data: https://t.co/ONldmtkFnPpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…
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Howell kept returning to the theme of the company, under Musk seeming to want to ingratiate itself to Trump. She said many users with valid privilege claims (marital, religious, etc) don’t get that kind of treatment. So why Trump?

https://t.co/lBVGp9KWdUpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…
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Read the newly unsealed filings here:

And here: https://t.co/QyCRvwWSD2dcd.uscourts.gov/content/doc-50…
dcd.uscourts.gov/content/doc-50…
SIDE NOTE: An appeals court panel that upheld Howell’s contempt order against Twitter caused a boom of news stories saying Judge Howell found Trump was a flight risk (left).

She actually said the exact opposite (right). https://t.co/wdAdgtE6s7cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opini…

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MORE: One thing prosecutors appeared to pursue is who *currently* has the keys to the @realdonaldtrump account.

Apparently, at least as of February, the list included Trump’s representatives to NARA (left). That list (right) includes some fun names.

https://t.co/GWnQb7qRLtpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…

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@realDonaldTrump The discussion about Trump’s “fleets” is amazing. In sum:

Judge: WTF are fleets?

Twitter lawyer: No idea (!) just heard about them today

Special counsel: WTF are fleets?! But also, you better give us all of Donald Trump’s fleets.

https://t.co/8oXs1wVPBwpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…

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NOTABLE: Chief Judge Boasberg, who took over grand jury matters from Howell in March, lifted Twitter's non-disclosure order in June (when it was due to expire), which authorized Twitter to inform Trump about the search warrant.

Unclear if they told him.

https://t.co/MDHejUVUdrpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…

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In one of its unsealed filings, Twitter acknowledges that — given his aversion to texts and emails — Trump's DMs may be "the only such electronic communications written by the former President himself." https://t.co/EeGNT0Dwmcpolitico.com/news/2023/08/1…
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More from @kyledcheney

Kyle Cheney Profile picture
Feb 5
Two men were recently charged with assaulting an immigration officer in MN with a snow shovel and broom, which led to a shooting ICE claims was defensive. The case made national headlines.

The men moved in court earlier in this week to prevent ICE from deporting witnesses who they say can rebut the charges. Their trial judge, Paul Magnuson, agreed.

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One of the witnesses, a 19-year-old woman who appears to be the partner of one of the defendants, was apparently picked up by ICE the same day as the incident and transported first to Texas and then to New Mexico.

Today, a judge in New Mexico noted demanded details about the woman's detention, noting that MN offered her a U visa for witnesses to a criminal investigation and that she's being held under mandatory detention policies that most judges – including Judge Strickland – have ruled unlawful.Image
UPDATE: Judge Strickland in New Mexico has now further enjoined DHS from relocating or deporting the witness. Image
Read 4 tweets
Kyle Cheney Profile picture
Feb 4
MEANWHILE: Judges in Minnesota continue rejecting the administration's efforts to lock up ICE's targets en masse. This man has been in the US since 1988 and says he's been approved for a green card.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…Image
What may be most notable, however, is the increasingly lengthy list of requirements in the judge's order — each responsive to recent violations or transgressions by the administation, such as releasing MN residents in Texas with no way to get home to withholding their possessions Image
In another release order, Judge BARTLE — a George W. Bush appointee in Pennsylvania — vented today that ICE "continues to act contrary to law, to spend taxpayer money needlessly, and to waste the scarce resources of the judiciary." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…Image
Read 4 tweets
Kyle Cheney Profile picture
Feb 4
NEW: A rupture between DOJ and ICE has emerged in Minnesota, where overwhelmed prosecutors keep dropping the ball — and saying ICE won't return their messages.

The crisis has had real-world consequences for migrants illegally detained.

w/ @joshgerstein

politico.com/news/2026/02/0…Image
MORE: Julie Le — the DOJ attorney who vented about the chaos in court — has been reassigned. politico.com/news/2026/02/0…Image
Le's cases are the tip of the iceberg. In recent weeks, an overwhelmed DOJ has dropped the ball in dozens of cases, missing deadlines, botching filings, violating orders.

Judge say the local DOJ attorneys aren't at fault — but blame their DC leaders. politico.com/news/2026/02/0…
Read 6 tweets
Kyle Cheney Profile picture
Jan 31
!! Judge Biery has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos — who became a symbol of ICE's aggression in MN

"The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas..even if it requires traumatizing children storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…Image
Never seen a ruling like this: "Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…Image
NEW: As he released 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, Judge Biery warned of vast lawlessness and inhumanity in the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. He said courts amounted to “a judicial finger in the dike.”

politico.com/news/2026/01/3…Image
Read 7 tweets
Kyle Cheney Profile picture
Jan 29
Judges around the country are eyeing what's happening in Minnesota. In a ruling freeing a detained immigrant here, Judge Goodwin of West Virginia said he couldn't ignore the crises in MN.

"Constitutional rights do not only protect persons when a lawsuit has been filed. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…Image
Judge Traynor becomes latest in a vanishingly small -- but steadily growing -- minority of judges to side with the Trump administration's mandatory detention policy. He says it's a "sorrowful conclusion" to remove a law-abiding man from his family.

Notably, Tryanor -- a North Dakota-based Trump appointee -- is apparently handling cases in Minnesota due to the immense backlog of habeas petitions.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…Image
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UPDATE: Another judge in Minnesota, Reagan appointee David Doty, rules a detention by ICE illegal — and threatens contempt for a failure to return the man to Minnesota. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…Image
Read 9 tweets
Kyle Cheney Profile picture
Jan 26
HAPPENING NOW: Minnesota v. Noem hearing is underway before Judge Menendez, who will weigh whether to order an end to Operation Metro Surge. AG Keith Ellison is at counsel table for the state.
Lawyer for the state, Lindsey Middlecamp, begins by demanding immediate end to "unlawful and unchecked invasion" by federal agents. She cites the Alex Pretti killing and says things are escalating, not improving.
Middlecamp says AG Bondi's letter to the state amounted to a "ransom note" and that messages from her and President Trump amounted to an unconstitutional attempt to coerce the state to change its policies.
Read 16 tweets

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