OAKLAND, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Former President Donald Trump wants his lawsuits against YouTube and Twitter heard by one judge.
He sued them earlier this year in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida over the suspension of his accounts in 2020. Both have since been moved to the Northern District of California, where on Nov. 9 he asked Judge Jeffrey White, the judge in the YouTube case to consider the cases related and take over both.
Trump, the American Conservative Union and journalist Naomi Wolf are plaintiffs in both, but the YouTube case lists five additional plaintiffs as possible class members.
“Plaintiffs in both cases seek to represent classes of social media users whose postings have been censored by Defendants because they express conservative views or question the policies and practices of officials in power,” the motion says.
“The core legal issues in both cases are identical.”
The cases allege members of Congress and the Executive Branch have coerced YouTube and Twitter into regulating speech on those platforms.
“For example, certain legislators publicly threatened to take punitive measures against Defendants if they continued to provide platforms for the expression of views and content contrary to the legislators’ own agenda,” the motion says.
“In particular, officials in positions of power made it very clear that they wanted President Trump banned from these social media platforms.”
The defendants were threatened with increased regulation and antitrust scrutiny, the motion says.
Twitter banned Trump on Jan. 7 after the siege on Capitol Hill and at the behest of Democrat lawmakers, the complaints say. Should White not consider the cases related, Trump will file a motion to consolidate.
"Unless the cases are related, deciding these complex motions will entail substantial duplication of judicial efforts," the motion says. "Perhaps most importantly, relating the cases would avoid the significant risk that different judges might make inconsistent rulings on dispositive issues that affect not only the rights and interests of Plaintiffs, but also of the putative class members."