Trump’s team told the Knight Institute on July 20 that the president does not intend to unblock those users, according to the lawsuit. The Knight Institute lawsuit wants Trump to unlock all users unless there are good reasons to keep them individually locked.
“The continued blocking of plaintiffs by individual plaintiffs … violates their First Amendment rights,” the lawsuit said Friday. “Unconstitutionally restricts your rights to read or participate in the discussion that occurs in the @realDonaldTrump account public forum.”
The lawsuit continued: “It also unconstitutionally restricts your right to access the statements that Defendants are making available to the general public, and your right to petition the government for redress of complaints.”
Trump was ordered to unblock Twitter users in the 2018 decision on the grounds that cutting people out of important policy ads for things they tweeted was a violation of their freedom of expression. In challenging the decision, the Justice Department argued that Trump’s Twitter account is not owned by the government and that he is free to exclude whoever he wanted from his private account, whose existence predates his presidency.
“An official’s decision to exclude someone from their personal residence would not exercise government authority, even if they were giving official statements about that property that day,” the Justice Department argued in an August court filing. “And what is true for real estate is equally true for a social media account.”
The White House declined to comment on the lawsuit. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
