The January search warrant from Jack Smith for former President Donald Trump's Twitter account was released by the DOJ on Monday, but more than half of the document was redacted.

The warrant asked for access to everything in Trump's account plus that of users who interacted with the account, including "mentions" and "replies" to his posts.

The prosecution wanted to know what Trump was communicating using the platform before and around the events of January 6, 2021, when a crowd of his supposed supporters stormed the Capitol and more than a thousand entered the building, occupying it for several hours in protest of what they saw as an unfair or fraudulent election.

Reluctant compliance

Twitter under Elon Musk, which has since been renamed X, initially refused to comply with the warrant.

After being held in contempt and fined $350,000, Musk relented and released the data Smith wanted, however.

Free speech supporters are up in arms over the warrant, saying it violates Trump's free speech and privacy rights along with those of his supporters.

"Enemy of the people"

Co-owner of the Trending Politics news website Collin Rugg called Smith an "enemy of the people."

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, editor of The Federalist and a Fox News contributor wrote: "As part of his war on Trump, Jack Smith collected info on any American who retweeted or favorited Trump tweets. This is such a dystopic nightmare, as is the way it's calmly accepted by so much of the country."

Others on Twitter said it was an assault on free speech and that America was no longer a democracy because of the warrant.

Secrecy and hiding

The warrant was part of Smith's four-count indictment of Trump alleging that he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election by inciting the Capitol breach and asking Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the votes on January 6.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and plans to mount a vigorous defense of his actions.

The warrant was released as part of a lawsuit by media organizations that discovered the existence of the warrant in August, even though it was filed in January.

The lawsuit seeks greater transparency in the case and by Smith.

When Trump found out about the warrant in August, he posted on Truth Social, "How dare lowlife prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, break into my former Twitter account without informing me and, indeed, trying to completely hide this atrocity from me. What could he possibly find out that is not already known."