The special counsel’s office has acknowledged error in a case involving former president Donald Trump for the second time in recent weeks. Jack Smith, special counsel, made the acknowledgment.

According to a ruling that was unsealed on August 9, Mr. Smith and his associates persuaded a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to not only sanction a search warrant for President Trump’s X account, formerly known as Twitter, but also to prevent President Trump from being informed of the warrant.

A court of appeals upheld Judge Howell’s instructions and revealed that she had approved the warrant application and the request for a nondisclosure order, preventing X from informing anyone, including President Trump, about the warrant.

The court cited Judge Howell as saying that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that President Trump learning about the warrant would “seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation” by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates.” The orders are still under seal.

According to the court of appeals, Judge Howell also stated that President Trump would depart if he discovered the warrant.

However, Mr. Smith’s team subsequently admitted that an error had been made in the input that led to the order.

“The district court also found reason to believe that the former President would ‘flee from prosecution,’” the appeals court said. “The government later acknowledged, however, that it had ‘errantly included flight from prosecution as a predicate’ in its application” for the non-disclosure order, the Epoch Times reported.

The U.S. Department of Justice, counsel for President Trump, counsel for X, and the corporation itself did not respond to requests for comment.

The court of appeals stated that Judge Howell’s “ultimate analysis” did not rely on the purported flight hazard.

X wanted to disclose parts of the warrant to President Trump but “such action would not have safeguarded the security and integrity of the investigation, as the whole point of the nondisclosure order was to avoid tipping off the former President about the warrant’s existence,” U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote in the unsealed ruling.

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

Judge Howell’s order was upheld by Judge Pan and the other members of a panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. CONTINUE READING…