Trump can block people on Twitter if he wants, administration says

As president, Trump can use Twitter however he sees fit, Justice Department says.

The administration of President Donald Trump is scoffing at a lawsuit by Twitter users who claim in a federal lawsuit that their constitutional rights are being violated because the president has blocked them from his @RealDonaldTrump Twitter handle.

"It would send the First Amendment deep into uncharted waters to hold that a president's choices about whom to follow, and whom to block, on Twitter—a privately run website that, as a central feature of its social-media platform, enables all users to block particular individuals from viewing posts—violate the Constitution." That's part of what Michael Baer, a Justice Department attorney, wrote to the New York federal judge overseeing the lawsuit Friday.

In addition, the Justice Department said the courts are powerless to tell Trump how he can manage his private Twitter handle, which has 35.8 million followers.

"To the extent that the President's management of his Twitter account constitutes state action, it is unquestionably action that lies within his discretion as Chief Executive; it is therefore outside the scope of judicial enforcement," Baer wrote. (PDF)

Baer added that an order telling Trump how to manage his Twitter feed "would raise profound separation-of-powers concerns by intruding directly into the president's chosen means of communicating to millions of Americans."

The lawsuit, filed last month, claims Trump's Twitter feed is a public forum and an official voice of the president. Excluding people from reading or replying to his tweets—especially because they tweeted critical comments—amounts to a First Amendment breach, according to the lawsuit. The suit demands that Trump unblock people he's blocked on Twitter, and it seeks a preliminary injunction to stop him from blocking people.

Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy says he doesn't think blocked Twitter users are having their First Amendment rights breached. That said, he believes "the matter is not open and shut."

Many of these types of lawsuits targeting politicians are cropping up across the nation. There's some legal precedent on the topic, too. Last month, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that a local politician had violated the First Amendment rights of a constituent because the politician briefly banned the constituent from the politician's personal Facebook account, where she discussed public business.

"The suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards," US District Judge James Cacheris wrote in a suit brought by a constituent against Phyllis Randall, the chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in Virginia. Randall's Facebook page, the judge ruled, "operates as a forum for speech under the First Amendment to the US Constitution."

In the Trump case, the Justice Department notes that people blocked by the president can still view his tweets if they log out of Twitter. The department also says that those suing Trump "remain free to use Twitter (or any social media platform) to criticize the president."

No hearing date has been set.