A federal appeals court just heard Trump's argument that he has a constitutional right to be on Twitter — and it didn't appear to go well, according to Politico.
"A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard Trump’s lawyer contend that Twitter, now known as X, acted at the behest of members of Congress and other U.S. government officials when it deplatformed Trump in January 2021, shortly after thousands of his supporters stormed the Capitol," reported Josh Gerstein. "The company said at the time that Trump’s tweets — including one in which he declared he would not be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration — were 'highly likely' to incite further violence."
The article continues:
"Trump’s lawyers allege that the ban violated Trump’s freedom of speech under the First Amendment because Twitter was responding to government pressure," said the report. "But two of the three appeals judges suggested that the calls from about a half dozen House members and senators were not enough to plausibly threaten the companies with legal consequences."
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One judge, Mark Bennett, said, “That’s a very, very small group of Congress. Why do statements from, let’s say, four senators at a committee hearing all of a sudden commit all of the power of the federal government to create state action here? … I don’t know of any case that stands for that proposition.”
Ultimately, Trump was allowed back onto the platform after tech billionaire Elon Musk took over, but other than tweeting out a picture of his mugshot after his arrest in Georgia, the former president has declined to go back to his old account, instead relying on his own Truth Social platform that he created after being banned.
Trump ironically fell off the Forbes 400 list this year, in large part because the deal he helped broker to create Truth Social cost him $600 million in net worth.
