Trump faces two lawsuits for First Amendment violations

In July 2017, President Donald Trump was sued by several users he had blocked on Twitter, who claimed their exclusion from the public forum constituted a First Amendment violation. Then, in October 2018, he was sued again, by a group claiming he had used governmental regulatory mechanisms to threaten media outlets, once more violating the First Amendment.

Key Players

President Donald Trump is known for his prolific Twitter use, which has led to legal troubles with a number of groups.

The Knight First Amendment Institute was established at Columbia University in 2016 and seeks to defend Free Speech and freedom of the press. The institute served as legal counsel for the seven people who sued Trump for blocking them on Twitter.

PEN America is an organization that represents writers and other figures in the literary community and also defends First Amendment values.

Further Details

Before filing the first lawsuit, the plaintiffs, including a comedy writer and a journalist for The Daily Kos, wrote in June 2017 to the White House requesting they be unblocked from access to Trump’s Twitter account. When their requests were ignored, they filed the legal action, which listed both Trump and Dan Scavino, the White House’s social media director, along with other high-ranking administration officials, as defendants.

The Knight First Amendment Institute argued that Trump’s Twitter feed constituted an official government tool, a characterization that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) pushed back on. The institute added that the account is a public forum from which the plaintiffs had been purposefully excluded. The Twitter account in question, @realDonaldTrump, was established by Trump in 2009 and has since garnered 48 million followers; @POTUS, the account that passes from one president to another, has about 22 million followers, according to The New York Times.

The original case was heard in a Manhattan federal court, presided over by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald. In a March 2018 hearing, Buchwald questioned both sides rigorously, according to The Times, at one point suggesting the president “mute” followers rather than “block” them. Muting critics would conceal their tweets from Trump, but critics would still be able to see the president’s tweets, which would not be possible once they were blocked from Trump’s account.

In October 2018, PEN America also filed a suit against Trump. PEN argued that he had demonstrated a pattern of behavior that seeks to interfere with the free press, separate from his rhetorical attacks on media outlets.

PEN cited a number of troublesome incidents, Fortune reports, including a demand that the U.S. Postal Service increase Amazon’s delivery rates after negative coverage of him was published in The Washington Post, a publication owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; a DOJ lawsuit to prevent the merger between AT&T and Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, which Trump frequently derides; and threats to challenge the broadcast licenses of TV stations owned by NBC or carrying its programs.

Fortune suggested that PEN may struggle to establish standing in court to file the lawsuit, as it does not directly represent any of the affected organizations, though some of its members work for these groups.

Outcome

Manhattan federal court rules Trump cannot block Twitter users; administration appeals

In May 2018, Buchwald ruled that the president’s @realDonaldTrump Twitter account did in fact, among others, violate the First Amendment.

“The viewpoint-based exclusion of the individual plaintiffs from that designated public forum is proscribed by the First Amendment and cannot be justified by the president’s personal First Amendment interests,” Buchwald wrote in the ruling.

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, suggested the ruling would have vital implications beyond the case of Trump’s feed, The Times reported. “This ruling should put them on notice, and if they censor critics from social media accounts used for official purposes, they run the risk that someone will sue them and win,” he said.

A DOJ spokesperson said at the time that it “respectfully disagree(s) with the court’s decision” and was considering its next steps.

Although Buchwald did not issue an injunction formally ordering the White House to unblock the users, the administration did so in June 2018, according to The New York Times.

“The decision to unblock the plaintiffs from interacting with Mr. Trump’s account was a gesture of constitutional modesty by the Trump administration at a time when he and his lawyers have been making increasingly aggressive assertions of executive powers,” The Times wrote.

At the same time it unblocked the users, however, the White House appealed the federal court’s ruling to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The suit brought by PEN is pending.

Appeals court rules against Trump

In July 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled unanimously that Trump’s blocking of critics on Twitter constituted a First Amendment violation. 

The ruling is expected to set a wide-ranging precedent for the First Amendment in the social media era. It also underscores the role of social media as a modern-day public forum, according to Jaffer.

“The ruling will ensure that people aren’t excluded from these forums simply because of their viewpoints and that public officials don’t transform these digital spaces into echo chambers,” Jaffer told The Times. “It will help ensure the integrity and vitality of digital spaces that are increasingly important to our democracy.”