No.
In the Supreme Court of the United States
D
ONALD
J.
T
RUMP
,
P
RESIDENT OF THE
U
NITED
S
TATES
,
ET AL
.,
PETITIONERS
v.
K
NIGHT
F
IRST
A
MENDMENT
I
NSTITUTE AT
C
OLUMBIA
U
NIVERSITY
,
ET AL
.
ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI
J
EFFREY
B.
W
ALL
Acting Solicitor General Counsel of Record
H
ASHIM
M.
M
OOPPAN
Counselor to the Solicitor General
S
OPAN
J
OSHI
Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General
R
EBECCA
T
AIBLESON
Assistant to the Solicitor General
S
COTT
R.
M
C
I
NTOSH
J
ENNIFER
L.
U
TRECHT
Attorneys Department of Justice Washington, D.C. 20530-0001 SupremeCtBriefs@usdoj.gov (202) 514-2217
(I)
QUESTION PRESENTED
Twitter, Inc. is a social media company that enables its users to create accounts through which they post “tweets” and interact with each other. Twitter permits users to “block” other individual users’ accounts, and a blocked user account cannot directly see or reply to the blocking user’s tweets. President Donald J. Trump cre-ated a Twitter account as a private citizen in 2009. He has continued to use that personal account since assum-ing the Presidency, including to announce official ac-tions or policies. In 2017, President Trump blocked in-dividual respondents’ Twitter accounts from his per-sonal account after respondents posted messages on their accounts criticizing him or his policies. The court of appeals held that, in doing so, President Trump vio-lated the First Amendment. The question presented is: Whether the First Amendment deprives a govern-ment official of his right to control his personal Twitter account by blocking third-party accounts if he uses that personal account in part to announce official actions and policies.
(II)
PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING
Petitioners (defendants-appellants below) are Don-ald J. Trump, in his official capacity as President of the United States; and Daniel Scavino, in his official capac-ity as White House Director of Social Media and Assis-tant to the President.
*
Respondents (plaintiffs-appellees below) are the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia Univer-sity; Rebecca Buckwalter; Philip Cohen; Holly Figueroa; Eugene Gu; Brandon Neely; Joseph Papp; and Nicholas Pappas.
RELATED PROCEEDINGS
United States District Court (S.D.N.Y.):
Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ.
v.
Trump
, No. 17-cv-5205 (May 23, 2018) United States Court of Appeals (2d Cir.):
Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ.
v.
Trump
, No. 18-1691 (Apr. 1, 2020)
*
Two other then-members of the White House staff, Hope Hicks and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, were also defendants in the district court. They were both dismissed from this case in the district court and were not parties to the proceeding in the court of appeals. App.,
infra
, 88a, 125a.