WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2020) The Trump administration is asking the US Supreme Court to review a 2019 decision that says the president violated the First Amendment of the Constitution by blocking people on Twitter, according to a petition filed on Thursday.
"In 2017, President Trump blocked individual respondents' Twitter accounts from his personal account after respondents posted messages on their accounts criticizing him or his policies," the petition said. "The Court of Appeals held that, in doing so, President Trump violated the First Amendment."
However, the panel opinion's public forum analysis strayed from the well-established precedent that when the government engages in its own speech, it is permitted to "speak for itself " and to "select the views that it wants to express," the petition said.
Thus, where government speech is at issue, forum analysis does not apply, the petition also said.
The District Court decision also erred in finding that the US president created a public forum by continuing to use Twitter's features the same way he did before taking office, the petition added.
