Well, that was time for our daily Bloomberg Law Brief, exploring legal issues in the news, and today, Bloomberg Law host Jim Grosso and Greg Store discuss a lawsuit challenging President Trump's ability to block users on Twitter. They speak with said Krishna Prakash, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School, and Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the
University of Texas Law School. Steve, the group of seven Twitter users range from a former police officer to a writer, tell us the argument that the First Amendment group is making on their behalf. Sure, I mean, I think the basic gist of their claim June is that the President's Twitter account is part of his job responsibilities. It's a public forum. It's a place where he hands down official
statement at a place where he disseminates news. Um and by preventing individual users from access in that forum for what are at least from the allegations, content based reasons the press and is discriminated on the basis of the content of his user's speech against him, um and that he's blocked to them basically because they have a viewpoint
with which he disagrees. You know, in a normal context, if a government official we're shutting out particular speakers based on their viewpoint, that would receive the highest scrutiny under the First Amendment and would typically be struck down by the courts. And so I we're still at a pretty early stage in this litigation, but give us an overview of what it looks like the Justice Department's defense of
Donald Trump is going to be here. Well, the Justice Development filed the letter with the court and basically made to two different claims. One was that, UM, this you know, the website, UM is not a public forum. The president had this Twitter account before he was president, UM, I presumably will have it after he's president, and he's using it to communicate with people, but it's not UM. It's not on a official website, our official Twitter handle for
the government. There's a separate White House Twitter feed for that. And then they're separately saying and Stephens very familiar with us. They're separately saying that you can't enjoy the president. Under some Supreme Court cases going back to right after the Civil War, you can't enjoin the president in his official duties. And so they're saying, want it's not a public form contrary to what the plaintiffs are saying, and too, even if it is, you can't tell the President to stop
blocking these people from his Twitter account. Yes I Krishna practas a professor at the University of Virginia Law School, and Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas Law School, speaking with Bloomberg Law host Jun Grosso. You can listen to Bloomberg Law weekdays at one pm Wall Street Time here on Bloomberg Radio, and that is this morning's Bloomberg Law Brief. You can find more legal news at Bloomberg Law dot com and Bloomberg BNA dot com.
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