‘They are bragging about donating the money to people who want to take my guns’: MTG rages after losing lawsuit

Lawsuit settled based on precedent set by decision on Trump’s Twitter account

An angry Marjorie Taylor Greene took to Twitter to complain that as a result of a lawsuit she is prohibited from blocking other accounts on the platform.

The suit against the Georgia congresswoman by Los Angeles-based political action committee MeidasTouch LLC was filed after Ms Greene blocked the group on Twitter for posts that criticised her and former President Donald Trump.

In settling the suit, Ms Greene is also paying $10,000 of the group’s legal fees, which they have said will be donated to gun reform organisations.

“Because of this PAC’s frivolous lawsuit against me, I’m not allowed to block people that threaten my life and my children’s lives every single day on social media,” Ms Greene tweeted.

“And they are bragging about donating the money to organizations that want to take away my guns, so I couldn’t defend myself and my children, when people show up to murder us like they threaten.”

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“This PAC is celebrating that a woman (me) can’t block people that want to kill me and my kids,” she added. “What an accomplishment for them.”

Ms Green accompanied her tweets with screenshots of a post in which she is attacked and an apparent direct message in which her children are threatened.

MeidasTouch tweeted: “We’ve settled our lawsuit against Marjorie Taylor Greene! She will pay $10K for our legal fees and is no longer allowed to block the public on Twitter. We will donate the $10K savings to @MomsDemand and @Ribbons4Jaime – two organisations pushing for common sense gun reform.”

A previous federal appeals court decision in a suit that involved Mr Trump, said that political figures are not able to block their critics on public Twitter accounts.

The ruling set a precedent for all political figures on the basis that blocking violates First Amendment rights to free speech.

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez settled a similar suit in 2019 after she blocked a former Brooklyn assemblyman.

In a statement at the time, she said: “I have reconsidered my decision to block Dov Hikind from my Twitter account. Mr Hikind has a First Amendment right to express his views and should not be blocked for them. In retrospect, it was wrong and improper and does not reflect the values I cherish. I sincerely apologise for blocking Mr Hikind.”