Sick Judge Just Ruled Against Trump – He Can’t Protect Himself From Vicious Attackers
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In a bizarre ruling that has many shaking their heads, a federal judge has deemed it unconstitutional for President Donald Trump to block anyone on social media. It is a victory of sorts for far left hecklers like Rosie O’ Donnell, Stephen King, and many others, even of the not so famous variety.
Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled that it is unconstitutional for President Trump to block anyone on the social media platform simply because they disagree with him or his policies. The judge states that because President Trump is a government official, using social media in his official capacity as a public forum. The president cannot censor dissent or opposing views as this is considered viewpoint discrimination and in violation of the First Amendment.
Judge Buchwald issued the ruling in a lawsuit filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University stating the fact that President Trump’s Twitter account predates his time in the White House is irrelevant. The fact is that he is in the White House now and serving as the President. He works for the American people, all of them, even those that strongly disagree or troll him on the internet.
She suggested in her 75-page opinion that Trump could have ignored his opponents’ reply tweets, stating in her ruling – “This case requires us to consider whether a public official may, consistent with the First Amendment, ‘block’ a person from his Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed, and whether the analysis differs because that public official is the President of the United States. The answer to both questions is no.”
According to the Hill, “the court’s ruling is a major win for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of seven people who were blocked from the @realDonaldTrump account because of opinions they expressed in reply tweets.
Buchwald, who was appointed by former President Clinton, rejected Trump’s argument that the First Amendment does not apply in this case and that the president’s personal First Amendment interests supersede those of the plaintiffs.
She suggested in her 75-page opinion that Trump could have ignored his opponents’ reply tweets.
“No First Amendment harm arises when a government’s ‘challenged conduct’ is simply to ignore the [speaker], as the Supreme Court has affirmed ‘that it is free to do,’ ” she wrote. “Stated otherwise, ‘a person’s right to speak is not infringed when government simply ignores that person while listening to others,’ or when the government ‘amplifies’ the voice of one speaker over those of others.”
Buchwald explained that blocking someone on Twitter goes further than just muting them.
“Muting preserves the muted account’s ability to reply to a tweet sent by the muting account, blocking precludes the blocked user from ‘seeing or replying to the blocking user’s tweets’ entirely,” she said.”
The lawsuit also named White House social media director and assistant to the president Daniel Scavino as Defendant in the lawsuit. However, in an interesting twist on the ruling Judge Buchwald did not order President Trump or Scavino to unblock the individual plaintiffs in the case or those previously blocked for dissenting views or prohibit them from blocking others from the account based on their views as the plaintiffs’ had asked.
Instead she stated her belief that a declaratory judgment should be sufficient, stating in her ruling – “Because no government official is above the law and because all government officials are presumed to follow the law once the judiciary has said what the law is, we must assume that the President and Scavino will remedy the blocking we have held to be unconstitutional.”
Naturally, the left took this portion of the ruling to mean that all those previously blocked must be unblocked immediately. Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, Jameel Jaffer, tweeted a screenshot of that specific line from Buchwald’s opinion with the caption – “Clock’s ticking @realDonaldTrump & @DanScavino.