The US Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by X (formally Twitter) after a District of Columbia court denied its challenge to a nondisclosure order preventing the company from sharing details with Donald Trump of a Department of Justice warrant against the former president’s activities on the social media platform.
In the summary dispositions record released by the court on Monday, SCOTUS indicated it would not grant the writ of certiorari of X and, therefore, not hear their appeal. The court provided no reasoning. Writs of certiorari are requests by a party in a lower court to request a higher court to hear their appeal. For a writ of certiorari to pass, at least four judges on the high court must agree to hear the case.
The nondisclosure order was imposed against X by the Department of Justice (DOJ) following a DOJ warrant investigating Trump’s X account activity. The investigation aimed to assess if Trump played a role in Russian interference in the 2020 election. X refused to abide by the order and argued their First Amendment right to freedom of speech was infringed, an argument the D.C. circuit court rejected insofar as the order pertained to a compelling government objective. Nondisclosure orders are court orders obliging a specific person or institution not to reveal certain information to another party.
Counsel for X argued in their petition that the DC superior court erred by failing to consider that the First Amendment was violated by the nondisclosure order and did not provide ample justification for its use. Nondisclosure orders should only be used where the state can prove a link between the restrictions of the nondisclosure order and the purpose the government seeks to fulfill. Counsel for X further argued that the nondisclosure order would prevent Trump from utilizing executive privilege before the warrant was executed and that the president must be given ample time and notice before deciding whether to exercise the rights granted by executive privileges. Executive privileges are rights the US president holds to keep information confidential from the judicial and legislative branches of the government.
In its response, Counsel for the United States argued freedom of speech is not engaged because of a clear statutory regime that clarifies precisely where the government can appropriately use a nondisclosure order. In the present case, a compelling government interest in preserving the integrity of the investigation was cited. Moreover, the concerns about presidential privilege are inapplicable and impractical — Trump did not raise them himself after discovering the warrant. If the full extent of the privilege argument X’s counsel raises were to be followed, it could cause extreme difficulty exercising warrants against individuals with any kind of information privilege, as they could hide important information before the exercise of a warrant against them.
