Just when you thought the “swamp” judicial system could sink no lower, an Elon Musk-X petition to the Supreme Court reminds us about Jack Smith’s and a leftist judge’s complete disrespect for Americans’ constitutional freedom from intrusive government searches.

The information emerges in X Corp.’s petition for a writ of certiorari relating to a court order arising from a search warrant that special counsel, Mr. Jack Smith (yes, that one), served on X demanding data and records from former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account. The problem from X’s viewpoint was an unusual attachment included with the warrant: A nondisclosure order blocking Twitter/X from disclosing to former President Trump the fact that the government had seized his records.

Imagine this scenario: You’re planning a trip, and because of several burglaries in your neighborhood, you ask your neighbor to store your important personal documents in his locked filing cabinet. While you’re gone, a court official armed with a search warrant goes to your neighbor to demand that he hand over copies of your documents.

Image: Kangaroo judge by Andrea Widburg

The twist is that the official also demands, through a non-disclosure order that carries with it the threat of prosecution, that your neighbor may not reveal to you that the court has seized copies of all your documents. Sometime later, that same official indicts you. Only then do you learn that the documents you entrusted to your neighbor were seized and are being used as evidence against you.

Are you OK with this?

Well, neither is the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. One of the primary purposes of the Fourth Amendment is to curb unlimited prosecutorial warrants. X Corp also isn’t okay with it. Last week, X Corp petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review a trial court order that allowed government prosecutors to include an enforceable non-disclosure order as part of a search warrant.

However, the government’s bad behavior isn’t limited to the non-disclosure agreement. When X originally challenged Smith’s order, arguing that it violated both X’s and President Trump’s First Amendment rights, as well as Trump’s executive/presidential privileges, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell was having none of it. What’s really amazing is her stated reason for refusing X’s petition:

X challenged the order, arguing it violated its First Amendment rights and noting that President Trump might have reason to claim executive privilege, or presidential privilege. The company wanted to alert the former president so he could assert the privilege, but U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled against it, claiming during a hearing that the only reason X was issuing the challenge was “because the CEO wants to cozy up with the former president.” (Emphasis added.)

Amazingly, a majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had no problem with this novel and unconstitutional legal judgment, upholding the lower court’s strange ruling.

The four dissenting Appeals Justices disagreed, saying,

“[W]e should not have endorsed this gambit.” [snip] “Rather than follow established precedent, for the first time in American history, a court allowed access to presidential communications before any scrutiny of executive privilege, Circuit Judge Neomi Rao wrote in a dissent.

Let’s hope that sanity prevails and that the highest court in the land restores justice by reining in these out-of-control Judicial Officers.