Thread by @kurteichenwald

Whenever I mention that Trump continues to block me - and thousands of others - on twitter, people respond that cant be true, because court ordered him to stop

Still don't get how GOP lawlessness works, huh? Yes, he still blocks. Let me explain how these scofflaws did it.../1

...US District Judge Naomi Rice ruled quite clearly in the 2017 case that Trump's tweets were official statements of the president (as Sean Spicer said back then) and thus Trump couldn't block people.../2 knightcolumbia.org/documents/a456…

...without violating the Constitution.

Then the question came down to, would the court issue an ORDER or just provide her judgement (injunctive relief versus declaratory relief.) With injunctive relief, a party risks contempt for refusing to abide by court's order.../3

...Trump argued a court could not give a court order to a president. (In Trump's view there are not co-equal branches of government.)

The judge said, we dont need to worry about injunctive vs. declaratory - of COURSE a public official will abide by a declaratory judgement.../4

...because no president is above the law.

Thus, with no order, Trump simply ignored the declaratory judgment. The people who SUED were unblocked, but everyone else would have to sue again to get ANOTHER declaratory judgment, and then seek an injunction again.

As a result:

...so, bottom line: Trump ignores subpoenas, he ignores court rulings, he ignores legal requirements. We have yet to learn if he will ignore a court injunction - but I have no doubt he would.

So, you want to force Donald Trump to abide by the law? Vote him out.

fin