March 28, 2024

Trump challenges ruling barring him from blocking Twitter users | TheHill

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a case in which President TrumpDonald John TrumpThe Hill’s Campaign Report: Democratic field begins to shrink ahead of critical stretch To ward off recession, Trump should keep his mouth and smartphone shut Trump: ‘Who is our bigger enemy,’ Fed chief or Chinese leader? MORE was told he could not legally b lock people on Twitter from seeing his tweets.

The DOJ’s Friday court filing requests a rehearing from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which has not yet said whether it will hear the case, CNN reported.

In the filing, the DOJ argued that Trump — whose personal Twitter account is not owned by the federal government and which was used by Trump for years prior to taking office — should be able to choose who accesses and interacts with his account, according to CNN.

“An official’s decision to exclude someone from his personal residence would not exercise the authority of the government, even if he were giving official statements on that property on that day,” the court filing reportedly reads. “And what is true for real property is likewise true for a social media account.”

The lawsuit added that the First Amendment “does not warrant this type of judicial superintendence of personal social media accounts owned by public officials.”

The move comes after a federal court ruled last month that Trump couldn’t block people on the social media platform, ruling that doing so would be unconstitutional.

In the ruling, the court said Trump “engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by utilizing Twitter’s ‘blocking’ function to limit certain users’ access to his social media account, which is otherwise open to the public at large, because he disagrees with their speech.”

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Jessica Campisi
The Hill

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