Trump's lawyers told a federal court tonight that Twitter's forum-selection agreement -- which requires that he sue the company in California (not Florida, where he sued) -- does not apply to him "as the 45th President of the United States."
Trump's argument seems to be that his Twitter account was actually operated on behalf of the government, inasmuch as he made announcements about policy. And Twitter's TOS don't apply to government entities that cannot accept venue limitations.
But if the court accepts the argument that Trump's Twitter account became a thing operated by and for the U.S. government, that would seem to open up the big question of why Trump, a private citizen, would have standing to sue over it.
(The argument also doesn't address why the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who weren't president, should escape the terms of service because Trump was.)
Trump's lawyers expressly say his Twitter account "was a government account, and not a private one when he was censored."

If so, it's really hard to imagine how Trump and various other people who aren't the gov't would possibly have standing to sue over that.
Trump also argues that Twitter's terms of service shouldn't be binding because the product is addictive, leaving addicts little choice but to agree.

(The lawsuit is seeking to force Twitter to let him back on to the addictive website.)
Lawyers for Trump - a self-described billionaire - say his "access to resources to conduct extensive litigation in Northern California are limited."

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More from @bradheath

24 Sep
A spokesman confirmed to @kjzzphoenix that the Arizona Senate's election audit basically matched the official results (Biden actually did slightly better.)

"Was there massive fraud or anything? It doesn’t look like it," he said.

kjzz.org/content/171931…

With 🔗to the reports. Image
The Cyber Ninjas now acknowledge that their claim that Arizona received 74,000 absentee ballots that were never sent out - a thing Trump and others repeated as evidence of fraud - was "unintentionally misleading." Image
Read 4 tweets
14 Sep
(@Reuters) - Three former U.S. intelligence operatives, who went to work as mercenary hackers for the United Arab Emirates, face federal charges by the U.S. Justice Department, according to a court docket created on Tuesday.
Background: American hackers used state-of-the-art cyber-espionage tools on behalf of a foreign intelligence service that spies on human rights activists, journalists and political rivals.

reuters.com/investigates/s…
Story from @Reuters: American hacker mercenaries face U.S. charges for work in UAE
reuters.com/world/us/ameri…
Read 8 tweets
1 Sep
The Arizona Senate released a big pile of records related to its election audit last night, in response to litigation by @weareoversight. If you have an appetite for a 4gb zip file, it's here: statecraftlaw.app.box.com/v/senateauditp…
Looks like the chair of the Arizona GOP had pretty extensive interactions with the gov't liaison for what the Senate claimed was a non-partisan audit, including arranging Newsmax and OANN hits for him.
Meanwhile, the president of the Ariz. Senate, @FannKfann, had some observations about the chamber's liaison to the Cyber Ninjas.
Read 9 tweets
29 Jul
The America Project put in more than half of the money for Arizona's audit. Its website leads with a video from Mike Flynn saying our nation is "under a new type of attack."

Another $550k came from Sidney Powell's group she's facing possible sanctions for her election suits.
The America Project, Inc. is a Delaware corporation formed in late April, whose registration appears to list no officers. Its contact address is a UPS Store in Tampa.
Trying to think of another situation in which the government hires somebody to do a job and anonymous private donors pick up more than 97% of the cost.
Read 5 tweets
8 Jul
One of the lawyers in the "Kraken" lawsuit says they can't be sanctioned for their failed effort to overturn Michigan's election, citing as authority "cases too numerous to mention and any attempt to string cite them here would be insulting to all involved."
The lawyer who filed this is actually represented by another lawyer at this point, but the lawyer for the lawyer didn't file it. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
This is the whole purpose of an e.g. cite.
Read 4 tweets
7 Jul
Relatives of Mike Flynn say in a new court filing that video of them reciting the QAnon phrase "where we go one we go all" was "not an oath of allegiance to QAnon, or any kind of oath at all. It was a simple, family, July 4 statement of support for each other."
Flynn's relatives, who previously appeared to flirt with QAnon online, now say in court: "It is common knowledge that Nazis, white supremacists and adherents of QAnon are violent extremists. ...To imply that a person is a Nazi sympathizer or a 'QANON FOLLOWER' is the same thing."
Here's the filing. It's in a defamation suit they filed against CNN, which moved to dismiss. This is their response. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Read 4 tweets

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