President Trump’s Big Tech Suit Lawyer Predicts Case Headed to Supreme Court, Says Gov’t Pressure Made Firms State Actors

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Trump big tech suit lawyer predicts case headed to Supreme Court, says gov’t pressure made firms state actors

By:  FOX News September 1, 2021:

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EXCLUSIVE – The top lawyer for former President Donald Trump in his lawsuits against Twitter, Google and Facebook over his bans from those platforms says that multiple factors make them “state actors,” meaning they’d be legally vulnerable under standards normally applied only to governments, like prior restraint.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News that lawyer, John Coale, argued that the government is essentially deputizing social media companies to censor Americans. And he predicted that the Supreme Court will eventually decide the case.

“The basis for all of this case is that private companies cannot be empowered by the government via Congress, via [Section] 230,” to censor people, Coale said. “The Biden administration and members of Congress can’t delegate what they cannot do themselves.”

He added: “This issue will in the end be decided in the Supreme Court, it’s that important.”

In addition to the initial complaints, Coale and his legal team last week filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Google – which owns YouTube – to force the company to allow Trump back on its platform.

In all of those documents the main thrust of the Trump team’s arguments is that the companies can be treated like the government in law because they are allegedly taking actions based on pressure, encouragement or willfully in concert with the government. They cite cases that allegedly support this, although they are not perfect fits for facts as the examples are mostly not in the context of speech rights.

“There’s three tests and if they flunk one test, they’re government actors,” Coale said. “The first is if … government officials be they congressmen, senators or people in the executive branch threaten these companies – they did it at congressional hearings, they did it in the media and we show examples of that in the preliminary injunction.”

“The other thing is, if the government encourages censorship that is unconstitutional,” Coale added. “The third test is if … the private company is doing the bidding of the government, and they are. We had Biden’s press secretary confirm that last month when she said that they’re working closely with Facebook to prevent misinformation on the virus.”

Last week’s motion for a preliminary injunction includes several examples of alleged pressure, encouragement and cooperation between the company and government officials.

Among those examples are comments and proposed bills from members of Congress like Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., taking a touch stance against alleged social media misinformation. There are also examples of members of Congress calling for social media bans of the former president and lauding th… (Read more)

 

 

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