When the William Barr-run Department of Justice subpoenaed Twitter for information on who was running an account trolling California Republican Devin Nunes, investigators claimed they weren’t looking for the legendary troll of Nunes, but instead said they wanted information on someone who made a threat against then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
According to the New York Times, investigators said they were not acting on a complaint from Nunes, who has been in a legal fight with at least two parody Twitter accounts. The DoJ filings explained in filings to a grand jury and a letter to Twitter that they sought information on who ran the @NunesAlt (Devin Nunes’ Alt-Mom) account because of threats against McConnell.
In direct messages with the NY Times, however, the person responding on the account claims there was nothing threatening or violent in their content. Upon receiving an order from the Department of Justice, Twitter balked and refused to comply, saying their in-house monitoring team found nothing threatening about the posts from the account.