Supreme Court Ends Four-Year-Long Lawsuit Challenging Trump’s Blocking of Critics on Twitter

On April 5th, the Supreme Court of the United States vacated the Second Circuit’s decision in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Donald Trump, a long-running lawsuit challenging former President Donald Trump’s pattern of blocking critics from his personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump. 

Justice Department Asks SCOTUS To Vacate Knight v. Trump Ruling

A day before Joe Biden's inauguration, the Justice Department under Donald Trump made a last-minute effort to undo a major court decision related to public official's social media accounts.

Government Petitions Supreme Court to Review Knight v. Trump Decision on Twitter Blocking

As in previous cases, the president's lawyers insist that the president's personal account is private and he should be allowed to exclude critics freely. They also emphasized that the act of blocking was not a kind of state action because it did not involve government power.

Appeals Court Rejects Request to Review Trump Twitter Case

"The critical question in this case is not the nature of the Account when it was set up a decade ago. The critical question for First Amendment purposes is how the President uses the Account in his capacity as President," Judge Barrington Parker wrote.