Former President Donald Trump’s team sent a letter to Facebook on Tuesday requesting the social media platform reinstate his account.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, banned Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot for posts that Meta claimed constituted “praise for people engaged in violence.” Facebook had set Trump’s ban to expire Jan. 7, 2023. Now, the company is reportedly deliberating on whether to reinstate him, Trump’s team wrote in the letter reviewed by the Daily Caller. (RELATED: Trump Could Soon Be Free From Facebook Jail. Here’s What He’ll Do Next)
In the letter, Trump’s team argued that the ban on the former president “has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,” and that a continued ban would be “a deliberate effort by a private company to silence Mr. Trump’s political voice,” given that he’s currently running in the 2024 presidential election.
“Every day that President Trump’s political voice remains silenced furthers an inappropriate interference in the American political and election process,” the letter read.
The letter added that Trump was recently unbanned from Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover. It further argued that Meta should also be encouraging free speech on its platforms.
PALM BEACH, FLORIDA – DECEMBER 31: Former U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he greets people during a New Years event at his Mar-a-Lago home on December 31, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump continues to run for a second term as the President of the United States. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Even if Trump gets unbanned from Facebook, he will likely not post, given that he is legally tied to a contract with Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the company that owns Truth Social. According to the TMTG legal document reviewed by the Daily Caller, Trump is “generally obligated to make any social media post on TruthSocial” first, before posting “on another social media site for 6 hours.”
The contract, which lasts 18 months from Dec. 22, 2021, does allow him to “post from a personal account related to political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts on any social media site at any time.”