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President Donald Trump is challenging a decision of the Federal Court of Appeal saying that he was violating the US Constitution by blocking people he did not like from his Twitter account.
In court papers filed late Friday by the US Department of Justice, Trump asked the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to conduct a rehearing, calling the 3-0 decision "fundamentally wrong".
Trump has more than 63 million followers on Twitter and often uses his account to make important announcements, especially on Friday, when his tweets on trading with China dropped the price of US stocks and oil.
The panel of three judges last month confirmed a May 2018 court of first instance decision compelling Trump to unblock several dozens of supporters.
Twitter Inc. and the White House declined to comment.
In the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Judge Barrington Parker wrote: "The First Amendment does not allow a public official who uses a social network account for official purposes to exclude persons from An online dialogue otherwise open because they the official does not agree. "
The White House's social media director, Dan Scavino, who was also charged, also challenges the court's decision.
The Ministry of Justice case on Friday warned that if the appeal court's decision were upheld, "public servants dealing with issues relating to their public office on personal accounts run the risk that every measure taken as such will be State action subject to constitutional review. "
Parker, however, had stated that Trump's account bore "all the attributes of a state-run, official account" and was "one of the main vehicles of the White House for driving of his official affairs ".
Trump made his @RealDonaldTrump account, which he opened in 2009, a central and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his program and attack critics.
His blocking of critics was challenged by the Knight First Amendment Institute of Columbia University, as well as by seven Twitter users he had blocked.
The Justice Department's file noted that since the decision, two lawsuits have been filed accusing the representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of having violated the first amendment by blocking people on her personal Twitter account.
The Department of Justice case stated that "the wrong reasoning of the first amendment applied by the court is applied not only to any public official, but also to the President of the United States."
SOURCE:
Reuters News Agency
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