White House Won't Challenge That Trump Blocked Twitter Users, Says Court-Filed Stipulation
A court-filed stipulation indicates the White House won't contest the assertion that President Donald Trump blocked Twitter users because they criticized him and his policies, said the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in a Wednesday news release. The…
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institute sued the president in July on behalf of seven people blocked from the @realDonaldTrump account (see 1706060062). The stipulation (in Pacer) which was filed Monday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said: "Defendants have agreed that they will not contest Plaintiffs’ allegation that the Individual Plaintiffs were blocked from the President’s Twitter account because the Individual Plaintiffs posted tweets that criticized the President or his policies." Knight Institute Executive Director Jameel Jaffer said: "The White House’s concessions here amount to an acknowledgment that the president and his aides have engaged in viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment." Other defendants named are White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino, who has access to the president's Twitter account, and Communications Director Hope Hicks and Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, neither of whom have access to the account, according to the stipulation. The White House didn't comment. It's scheduled file an opening brief Oct. 13 with the institute set to file one Nov. 3.