There’s going to be a Twitter Files where Matt Taibbi exposes this in long form tweets, right?
Wait, they changed the name. It will have to be called the X Files now. I’m sure that won’t be problematic.
Sounds like Twitter needs some obstruction of justice charges and for some people to get arrested.
Can they get Twitter, too? Obstruction of justice or messing with evidence or something like that?
Read the article, it’s a lot more than just slow walking it.
Twitters lawyer legit was playing defense for trump, repeating Trump’s talking points, arguing with prosecutors and the judge, and gave trump notice after being explicitly told not to…
Considering this a RICO case, it wouldn’t take much to get added to the list of defendants. And about the only way this makes sense, is if Musk/Twitter should already be on the list of defendants.
Otherwise Twitter (who can’t pay their own bills) is just running legal defense for trump out of the goodness of their hearts for free.
They were already fined a pittance, so the chances of escalating are basically zero.
I agree it should perhaps have started off a little higher, but the fine was set so the amount added would double for every day they didn’t comply.
- day 1: $50,000
- day 2: +$100,000 ($150,000 total)
- day 3: +$200,000 ($350,000 total - this is what they paid)
- day 4: +$400,000 ($750,000 total)
- …
- day 7: +$3,200,000 ($6,350,000 total)
- day 14: +$409,600,000 ($819,150,000 total)
- day 28: +$6.7 trillion ($13.4 trillion total)
The day 3 fine wasn’t all that bad for them, but it wasn’t a fine they could just eat if they delayed as long as they wanted. Definitely not a “cost of doing business” fine, that’s for sure.
For a normal functional company, yeah, it would be nothing.
But Twitter has never made money, now owes billions in loan payments, already let a bunch of staff go, and stopped paying rent on buildings…
And not paying this on time (which they might legitimately not have the funds) can result in a lot more money or even criminal charges.
Requesting the drafts is interesting. I wonder if they thought they were being clever by sharing an account and communicating via draft messages.
I think what this is going to reveal (along with the location data) is that multiple people had access to the account and wrote/released “his” tweets. It would hardly be a surprising revelation given his background as a reality TV star (where shows have large writing staffs) and the fact that he didn’t write (or even read) his own autobiography.
If Musk had anything to do with it personally, can he be charged?
You can drag your feet as long as you can pay a lawyer to find a reason to stand up and argue. Somehow that’s not generally obstruction of justice. See how Trump has always evaded jail with this tactic.
Not for their argument they can’t.
They seem to have been arguing about the non-disclosure to the public/Trump, not the actual delivery of the tweets.
If they’d delivered the tweets/drafts, they would have complied with no downside, and still been able to fight the non-disclosure. (Or just do what they did anyway, and tell people about it)
