Justice Dept. appeals ruling

Justice Dept. appeals ruling in Trump Twitter-blocking case

By BRENT D. GRIFFITHS

President Donald Trump and one of his top aides on Monday night appealed a federal court ruling that said the president was violating the constitutional rights of individuals he has blocked from viewing his personal Twitter feed.

Three Justice Department officials filed notice of their appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on behalf of Trump and Dan Scavino, the White House social media director.

Late last month, U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, ruled that Twitter serves as a “designated public forum.” Since Twitter reaches that threshold, the judge ruled, blocking people from the president’s personal Twitter account is a violation of their constitutional rights.

Trump has repeatedly said he uses his tweets as a way to get around the mainstream media that he views as biased against him. On occasion, he has also appeared to use his personal account to make policy statements, like last July when he declared that transgender service members would be barred from serving in the military in “any capacity.”

The Justice Department has previously argued that the case would thrust the First Amendment into “uncharted waters,” as federal courts would be dictating what a president could or could not do on a private website.

“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,” Justice Department attorney Michael Baer wrote in August 2017.