A court rules (unpersuasively) that Trump can't block critics on Twitter

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that President Trump violated the 1st Amendment by blocking some critics from access to his Twitter feed. The decision by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals might seem like poetic justice visited on a president who can dish it out but can’t take it. But as a matter of constitutional law, the ruling isn’t persuasive.

In 2017, a group of Twitter users who had been blocked from seeing and responding directly to Trump’s tweets filed suit in federal court in New York. One plaintiff was blocked after she responded to a Trump tweet crowing about his electronic victory with: “To be fair, you didn’t win the WH: Russia won it for you.”