Legal experts laughed at Donald Trump's latest court filings in his battle against Twitter.
Reuters legal correspondent Brad Heath reports "Trump's lawyers told a federal court tonight that Twitter's forum-selection agreement -- which requires that he sue the company in California (not Florida, where he sued) -- does not apply to him 'as the 45th President of the United States.'"
"Trump's argument seems to be that his Twitter account was actually operated on behalf of the government, inasmuch as he made announcements about policy," he explained. "But if the court accepts the argument that Trump's Twitter account became a thing operated by and for the U.S. government, that would seem to open up the big question of why Trump, a private citizen, would have standing to sue over it."
University of Texas Law Prof. Steve Vladeck doubted the court would accept Trump's argument.
"It would be crazy enough to argue that a sitting President is somehow exempt from ordinary contract law principles simply because he's the President. But here, Trump agreed to Twitter's terms *before* he was President, and is challenging them *after.* So … good luck with that," he posted to Twitter.
He wasn't the only one with criticism.
"Trump has gotten so used to ignoring the law that he thinks it doesn't apply to him anymore," former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said. "Any lawyer signing their name to a pleading making that assertion should be embarrassed."
"The creepiest part of this is that it reads present tense, as though he's asserting that he's (still) the 45th President," wrote former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance.
Here is Heath's thread: