President Trump takes Twitter-blocking case to appeals court
President Donald Trump is continuing his fight in the courts contesting a ruling that prevents him from blocking his political critics on Twitter after an appeals panel determined his daily tweets were official in nature.
On Friday, lawyers from the Justice Department asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan to reconsider whether or not the three-judge panel erred in ruling Trump could not block critics from his Twitter feed, claiming the case has far-reaching implications for public officials on social media.
"If the panel is correct, public officials who address matters relating to their public office on personal accounts will run the risk that every action taken on that account will be state action subject to constitutional scrutiny," the lawyers wrote.
The request, known as an “en banc” hearing, is a rare one for the 2nd Circuit Court, which typically only grants such requests barely once a year.
However, in Trump’s case, the lawyers from the Justice Department’s civil division said the July ruling was of “exceptional importance,” and said it conflicted with past court precedents.
The panel deemed Trump in violation of the First Amendment whenever he blocked an online critic, which essentially silences their viewpoint and prevents them from viewing his official observations and announcements, which he almost exclusively reports on the Twitter platform.
But Justice Department lawyers contend that the account in question, @realDonaldTrump, is a personal account he created in 2009, long before he became president, and therefore is not used in any kind of official capacity and should be viewed as any other kind of personal property.
"His ability to exclude others from this personal property is likewise independent of his office. That authority was conferred on him by Twitter, not by the government," they wrote.
The case to prevent Trump’s Twitter blocking abilities was brought forth by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which sued on behalf of seven people who had been blocked by Trump on the social media platform after calling his policies into question.
"The panel's opinion was thorough and well-reasoned, and the arguments the White House makes in its petition for rehearing are ones the panel appropriately rejected. We hope and expect that the petition will be denied," the institute’s director, Jameel Jaffer, wrote in response to the Justice Department’s appeal.