2026-05-05T06:00:09-0400 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-truth-social-x-legal-challenges-administration/
华盛顿讯 —— 在美国司法部律师为特朗普总统第二任期的多项政策在大量诉讼中进行辩护之际，这位总统热衷于在社交媒体发帖的习惯，却为在法庭上质疑其行动的律师们提供了大量证据。
在已提起的数百起案件中，至少有十多起案件里，法官在针对政府的相关裁决中援引了特朗普先生或其政府高级官员的社交媒体帖子。
其中一些判决源于针对特朗普政府针对律师事务所、新闻机构和抗议以色列的国际学生所采取行动的第一修正案挑战。其他案件则涉及扣留联邦福利和拨款、解雇大批联邦雇员以及终止对特定国家移民的临时驱逐保护等举措。
在一项阻止华盛顿特区美国检察官办公室向美联储发出传票的裁决中，美国地区法官詹姆斯·博斯伯格援引了特朗普先生超过100条谴责美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔的社交媒体帖子，并认定传票的辩护理由是借口。
“大量证据表明，发出传票的主要目的是骚扰鲍威尔，向他施压以要求其降息，”博斯伯格在3月的裁决中就传票一事写道。“多年来，总统一直公开针对鲍威尔，因为美联储没有提供特朗普所要求的低利率。”
华盛顿特区美国检察官珍妮·皮尔罗上个月宣布，其办公室将撤销对鲍威尔以及美联储总部翻新工程的调查。
“我们乐见他继续发言、继续发帖，”“推进民主”组织的总裁兼首席执行官斯凯·佩里曼说道。该组织已针对本届政府提起数百起诉讼。“每当总统本人、其助手或政府官员发表这类高调言论时，这通常会在法庭上帮助我们，也让法院和美国民众清楚地看到，政府采取的一系列行动往往是出于违宪动机，源于总统自身的观点或报复议程。”
去年11月，“推进民主”组织的律师代表小企业和非营利组织提起诉讼，质疑农业部在政府停摆期间暂停补充营养援助计划福利的行为。一名联邦法官援引特朗普先生在“真相社交”上的表态作为证据，证明政府出于政治目的扣留了食品援助。
特朗普先生曾宣称，这些福利“只会在激进左翼民主党人开放政府时发放——他们完全可以做到这一点——在此之前不会发放！”
“本法院并非对政府的真实动机一无所知，”美国地区法官约翰·麦康奈尔在裁决中写道。“这些言论清楚表明，政府扣留全部SNAP福利并非出于对儿童营养资金的担忧，而是出于政治目的。这种‘不合理的党派偏见’已经渗透到农业部的决策中，使其变得武断且反复无常。”
白宫为特朗普先生使用社交媒体的行为进行辩护，并抨击那些作出不利于本届政府裁决的下级法院法官。
“美国民众喜爱并珍视特朗普总统的透明度。他的发帖并非问题所在——问题在于那些推行自身政策议程、显然被特朗普总统的议程激怒的下级法院法官所作出的持续不断的非法裁决，”白宫发言人阿比盖尔·杰克逊在给哥伦比亚广播公司新闻的声明中说道。“特朗普总统在落实其当选时提出的‘美国优先’倡议时不会动摇。”
为决策过程照亮光芒
重返白宫以来，特朗普总统一直试图将联邦资金作为杠杆，对付他长期以来批评的对象。2025年4月，特朗普政府宣布将冻结向哈佛大学提供的超过20亿美元联邦拨款，理由是该校对待犹太学生的方式以及校园内的反犹太主义。
哈佛大学提起诉讼，称暂停并最终彻底终止拨款的举措是对其拒绝遵守特朗普政府一系列要求的报复。美国地区法官艾莉森·巴勒斯9月作出有利于哈佛大学的裁决，认定政府的报复行为违反了第一修正案。司法部已就该裁决提起上诉。
巴勒斯援引特朗普政府宣布冻结拨款后特朗普先生的社交媒体帖子，写道这些言论以及其他高级官员的表态“证实了政府对哈佛发动的全面攻击，更多是为了推行违反第一修正案的政府正统观念，而非其他任何事情，包括打击反犹太主义”。
特朗普先生曾称哈佛是一个“笑话”，“不应再获得联邦资金”，并抨击该校“雇佣了几乎所有觉醒派、激进左翼的白痴和‘笨蛋’，他们只能教给学生失败”。
华盛顿伦理与责任公民组织的首席法律顾问尼克尔·苏斯表示，特朗普先生的发帖内容以及他愿意就各种话题公开表态，给司法部在法庭上为政府辩护带来了麻烦。但对于公众而言，这些言论提供了一扇了解总统动机的窗口。
“如果总统打算采取某项行动，然后想通过社交媒体或新闻媒体向美国民众坦诚说明某项政策的真正原因——即便这会损害政府的法律案件——我认为这是件好事，因为法院不应去猜测总统或行政部门采取特定立场或推行某项政策的原因，”他说。“就政府做出重大决策而言，它有义务向美国民众解释做出这些决策的原因，并给出坦诚的解释。”
与剥夺哈佛大学联邦资金的决定类似，特朗普先生签署了一项行政命令，试图阻止美国国家公共广播电台和公共广播服务机构获得公共资金，理由是总统所称的有偏见的报道。
这两家新闻机构辩称，总统的指令违反了第一修正案，因为它基于其观点和编辑选择对它们进行歧视和报复。特朗普先生经常在社交媒体上抨击PBS和NPR，称它们是“激进左翼的灾难，1000%反对共和党！”以及“激进左翼民主党党的工具”。
美国地区法官伦道夫·莫斯裁定总统的行政命令违宪，并永久阻止特朗普政府执行该命令，认定其针对的是特朗普先生不喜欢其观点的媒体机构。
“根据本案记录，毫无疑问，行政命令并非仅仅因为原告拥有某种观点或一贯立场，未能达到某种尚未达成的‘无偏见’新闻业的理想化标准，而是因为总统认为他们的言论不利于他本人和共和党，”他写道。
莫斯继续说道：“诚然，总统有权批评此次或其他任何报道，他可以自由表达自己的观点。但他不得利用政府权力指示联邦机构拒绝向原告提供联邦拨款或其他资金，以报复那些他不喜欢的言论。”
根据联邦证据规则，庭外陈述通常不可在法庭上采纳。但对方当事人的陈述属于例外情况。在针对特朗普政府的法律挑战中，这类陈述通常来自总统或高级官员。
“在本届政府中，特朗普总统对其作为总统的权力持极端立场，他认为总统对整个行政分支拥有最终控制权，”苏斯说道。“因此，按照这一推理，他就其政府和行政分支所做之事发表的声明，会在针对联邦政府的诉讼中约束司法部。”
X平台与2020年大选
总统此前曾因社交媒体帖子和公开声明面临法律问题，最引人注目的是与2020年大选以及他涉嫌试图破坏总统权力交接有关。
与2021年1月6日国会山骚乱相关的民事诉讼和联邦起诉书，部分依据了特朗普先生发布的重复虚假宣称他赢得2020年大选并指控关键摇摆州存在选举舞弊的推文。在这些案件中，当时的特别检察官杰克·史密斯以及一群民主党议员和美国国会警察官员辩称，总统通过其发帖和公开评论，误导了其支持者对2020年大选结果的认知，并煽动了国会山的暴力行为。
史密斯对特朗普先生的起诉在他赢得2024年大选后结束。但美国地区法官阿米特·梅塔最近的一项裁决允许民事诉讼继续进行，理由是总统未能证明其行为属于官方行为，因此不能免于就该行为提起诉讼。
在最高法院2024年作出前总统可免于因在白宫期间的官方行为被起诉的裁决后，梅塔评估了特朗普先生与国会山骚乱和2020年大选相关的近30条推文，以确定这些行为是否属于官方行为。他表示，这些社交媒体帖子几乎都不属于特朗普先生作为总统的职责范畴，而是他作为候选人试图保住职位的非官方行为。
“特朗普式特征”
随着特朗普先生依靠社交媒体就人事和政策发表声明，并对他认为的政治敌人发起抨击，法官们一直在努力应对如何评估他的帖子。
在10月一场针对总统将俄勒冈州国民警卫队成员联邦化并派往波特兰的决定的听证会期间，美国地区法官卡琳·伊默古特就总统在“真相社交”上的帖子作为部署理由一事向司法部律师提出质疑。
“真的吗？一条社交媒体帖子就能算作总统可以派遣国民警卫队前往城市的决定？我的意思是，我真的应该以此为依据吗？”伊默古特问道。
总统在9月27日的一篇帖子中表示，他已指示国防部长皮特·赫格斯塞斯派遣部队“保护饱受战争蹂躏的波特兰，以及任何处于安提法和其他国内恐怖分子攻击下的移民海关执法局设施”。
同样，当一名联邦法官审议特朗普先生去年试图解除丽莎·库克美联储理事会成员职务的请求时，法官认定库克未收到通知，也没有机会对导致她被免职的指控提出异议。特朗普先生去年8月在“真相社交”上写道，库克“必须立即辞职！！！”，并附上了一篇关于提交给司法部的一封声称她犯有抵押贷款欺诈的推荐信的新闻文章链接。
在发布该消息五天后，特朗普先生在“真相社交”上分享了一封通知库克被解雇的信件。
“法院高度怀疑，库克本应需要从零散的社交媒体帖子和新闻文章中拼凑出‘有正当理由’被免职的证据依据，”美国地区法官贾·科布去年9月写道。“即使提供的通知足够充分，库克的正当程序权利仍可能遭到侵犯，因为她没有获得‘有意义的听证机会’。”
最高法院成员也对特朗普先生的社交媒体帖子是否构成足够的通知提出了质疑。
“整个案件都不合常规，首先就是这条‘真相社交’通知，或者说根本不把它当作通知，”大法官索尼娅·索托马约尔在1月的口头辩论中告诉副检察长D·约翰·索尔。“这 certainly didn’t invite an opportunity to be heard.”（原文如此，未翻译）
大法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊随后询问库克的律师保罗·克莱门特，美联储理事将如何收到针对她的指控信息以及提出异议的机会。
“你是否承认，在总统寻求以正当理由罢免州长的情况下，社交媒体上的帖子就足以构成通知？”她问道，随后进一步询问如果库克没有“真相社交”账户该怎么办。
最高法院尚未就库克是否可以继续留任作出裁决，但似乎有可能驳回总统将其免职的企图。
曾在多起第一修正案案件中担任诉讼律师的吉布森·邓恩律师事务所律师特德·布特罗斯表示，特朗普先生在第二任期内越来越多地使用社交媒体发布官方公告，这让法院在如何解读其帖子方面陷入困境。
“他使用‘真相社交’和这些帖子来以总统身份发表声明和宣布决定，这正是法院在这些问题上的处理方向，”他告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻。“当这成为首选的沟通方式时，无论好坏，我们都应该能够依赖它们。”
除特朗普先生外，政府高级官员也发现他们的社交媒体帖子被法官纳入裁决考量。
今年3月，美国地区法官保罗·弗里德曼在《纽约时报》挑战五角大楼新的限制性新闻政策的案件中作出有利于该报的裁决，认定部分规则基于观点进行歧视，违反了第一修正案。
弗里德曼援引五角大楼首席发言人肖恩·帕内尔在X平台上分享的一篇抨击文章，称《纽约时报》和其他新闻机构“憎恨特朗普”且“痴迷于摧毁任何致力于特朗普总统议程的人”。帕内尔和五角大楼新闻团队的另一名成员还在社交媒体上抨击《华盛顿邮报》的报道，包括呼吁对其记者“严厉惩罚”。
与此同时，签署五角大楼新新闻政策的记者在社交媒体上受到官员的赞扬。
“无可辩驳的证据反映了该政策的真实目的和实际效果：剔除不受欢迎的记者——那些在该部看来‘不支持且不愿效力’的人——并用支持该政策的新闻机构取而代之。这就是纯粹的观点歧视，”弗里德曼写道。
代表《纽约时报》和NPR的布特罗斯表示，社交媒体帖子是观点敌意的直接证据，这违反了第一修正案。
“这确实是特朗普式的特征，因为将敌意和观点歧视记录在案的情况极为罕见，”他说，并补充道，“这种情况非常不寻常，也非常有说服力。”
From Truth Social to judicial decisions: Groups challenging Trump’s actions get help from his posts
2026-05-05T06:00:09-0400 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-truth-social-x-legal-challenges-administration/
Washington — As Justice Department lawyers work to defend President Trump’s second-term policies in scores of lawsuits, the president’s proclivity for posting on social media is providing a trove of evidence for lawyers challenging his actions in court.
In at least a dozen cases out of hundreds that have been filed, judges have pointed to social media posts from Mr. Trump or senior members of his administration in their rulings against the government on a range of issues.
Some of the decisions came in First Amendment challenges stemming from actions the Trump administration has taken against law firms, news outlets and international students protesting against Israel. Others arose from attempts to withhold federal benefits and grants, fire scores of federal workers and end temporary deportation protections for immigrants from certain countries.
In one ruling blocking subpoenas issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., to the Federal Reserve, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg referenced more than 100 of Mr. Trump’s social media posts that denounced Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and found that the justifications for the subpoenas were pretext.
“A mountain of evidence suggests that the dominant purpose is to harass Powell to pressure him to lower rates,” Boasberg wrote of the subpoenas in his March decision. “For years, the President has publicly targeted Powell because the Fed is not delivering the low rates that Trump demands.”
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, announced last month that her office is dropping its probe into Powell and renovations of the Fed’s headquarters.
“We say, let him keep talking. Let him keep tweeting,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a legal organization that has filed hundreds of lawsuits against the administration. “Because every time that the president engages in or his associates and administration officials engage in this type of brash rhetoric, it is often helping us in court and exposing for both the court and the American people that the administration is taking a range of actions that are motivated, often unconstitutionally motivated, by the president’s own viewpoint or retribution agenda.”
One lawsuit brought by Democracy Forward lawyers on behalf of small businesses and nonprofit organizations last November challenged the Agriculture Department’s suspension of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits during the government shutdown. A federal judge pointed to Mr. Trump’s venting on Truth Social as evidence that the administration withheld the food aid for political reasons.
Mr. Trump had declared that the benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”
“This Court is not naïve to the administration’s true motivations,” U.S. District Judge John McConnell wrote in his decision. “Far from being concerned with Child Nutrition funding, these statements make clear that the administration is withholding full SNAP benefits for political purposes. Such ‘unjustifiable partisanship’ has infected the USDA’s decision-making, rendering it arbitrary and capricious.”
The White House defended Mr. Trump’s use of social media and attacked lower court judges who have ruled against the administration.
“The American people love and value President Trump’s transparency. His posts aren’t the problem — the problems are the unrelenting, unlawful rulings issued by lower court judges pushing their own policy agenda who are clearly triggered by President Trump’s agenda,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement to CBS News. “President Trump will not waver when implementing the America First initiatives he was elected on.”
Shining a light on decisionmaking
Since returning to the White House, the president has sought to use federal dollars as leverage against entities he has long criticized. In April 2025, the Trump administration said it would be freezing more than $2 billion in federal grants to Harvard University, citing the school’s treatment of Jewish students and antisemitism on campus.
Harvard sued, alleging that the moves to halt and then end the grants altogether were made in response to its refusal to comply with a slew of demands made by the Trump administration. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled in favor of Harvard in September, finding in part that the administration retaliated against it in violation of the First Amendment. The Justice Department has appealed that decision.
Citing Mr. Trump’s social media posts after the administration announced its funding freeze, Burroughs wrote that those statements, among others from senior officials, “corroborate that the government-initiated onslaught against Harvard was much more about promoting a governmental orthodoxy in violation of the First Amendment than about anything else, including fighting antisemitism.”
Mr. Trump had called Harvard a “joke” that “should no longer receive Federal Funds,” and lambasted the school for “hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students.”
Nikhel Sus, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the contents of Mr. Trump’s posts, and his willingness to speak openly on all manner of topics, are causing trouble for the Justice Department as it seeks to defend the administration in court. But for the public, the musings provide a window into the president’s motivations.
“If the president is going to take a particular action and then he wants to speak to the American people through some social media channel or through the press in ways that are honest and the real reason behind a particular policy, even if they hurt the government’s legal case, I think that’s a good thing, because courts should not have to guess about why the president or the executive branch is taking a particular stance or adopting a particular policy,” he said. “To the extent that the government is making major decisions, it owes the American people an explanation of why it is making those decisions and it owes them an honest explanation.”
Similar to the decision to strip Harvard of federal funds, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that sought to keep National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service from receiving public dollars because of what the president said was biased reporting.
The two news outlets argued the president’s directive violated the First Amendment because it discriminated and retaliated against them based on their viewpoint and editorial choices. Mr. Trump had often railed against PBS and NPR on social media, claiming they were a “Radical Left Disaster, and 1000% against the Republican Party!” and “arms of the Radical Left Democrat Party.”
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled the president’s executive order was unconstitutional and permanently blocked the Trump administration from enforcing it, finding that it targeted the outlets for viewpoints Mr. Trump dislikes.
“On this record, there can be no doubt that the Executive Order does not target Plaintiffs merely because they have a viewpoint or consistent perspective and therefore fail to live up to some yet-to-be-attained platonic ideal of ‘unbiased’ journalism, but because he views their speech as unfavorable to him and the Republican party,” he wrote.
Moss continued: “To be sure, the President is entitled to criticize this or any other reporting, and he can express his own views as he sees fit. He may not, however, use his governmental power to direct federal agencies to exclude Plaintiffs from receiving federal grants or other funding in retaliation for saying things that he does not like.”
Out-of-court statements generally are not admissible in court, according to the federal rules of evidence. But the statements by an opposing party are an exception. In the legal challenges against the Trump administration, those are typically from the president or senior officials.
“With this administration, where President Trump has taken a maximalist view of his authority as the president, his position is that the president has ultimate control over the entire executive branch,” Sus said. “So falling from that reasoning, statements he makes about things that his administration does and the executive branch does would bind the Department of Justice in litigation against the federal government.”
X and the 2020 election
The president has faced legal issues before as a result of his social media posts and public statements, most notably relating to the 2020 election and his alleged efforts to subvert the transfer of presidential power.
Civil lawsuits and the federal indictment related to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol relied in part on Mr. Trump’s tweets repeating false claims that he won the 2020 election and alleging election fraud in key battleground states. In those cases, then-special counsel Jack Smith and a group of Democratic lawmakers and U.S. Capitol Police officers argued that through his postings and public comments, the president deceived his supporters about the outcome of the 2020 election and fomented violence at the Capitol.
Smith’s prosecution of Mr. Trump ended after he won the 2024 election. But a recent decision from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta allowed the civil suit to proceed after finding the president fell short of showing he was engaged in official acts and therefore is not immune from suit for that conduct.
Mehta evaluated nearly three dozen tweets from Mr. Trump related to the Jan. 6 attack and the 2020 election to determine whether they constituted official conduct — an analysis undertaken after the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision finding a former president is immune from prosecution for official acts that occurred while in the White House. He said that nearly all of these social media postings fell outside Mr. Trump’s duties as president and were the unofficial actions of a candidate trying to hold onto office.
A “Trumpian characteristic”
As Mr. Trump leans on social media to make pronouncements about personnel and policies — and level insults against his perceived political enemies — judges have been left grappling with how to evaluate his posts.
During an October hearing in a challenge to the president’s decision to federalize members of the Oregon National Guard and send them to Portland, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut questioned Justice Department lawyers about the use of Truth Social posts from the president as justification for the deployment.
“Really? A social media post is going to count as a presidential determination that you can send the National Guard to cities? I mean, is that really what I should be relying on?” Immergut asked.
The president had said in a Sept. 27 post that he was directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to send troops to “protect war ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”
Similarly, when a federal judge considered Mr. Trump’s bid to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors last year, she found that Cook did not receive notice and an opportunity to contest the allegations against her that prompted her removal. Mr. Trump had written on Truth Social last August that Cook “must resign, now!!!” and included a link to a news article about a referral letter to the Justice Department claiming she committed mortgage fraud.
Five days after his message, Mr. Trump shared on Truth Social a letter informing Cook she was being fired.
“The Court is highly doubtful that Cook should have been required to piece together the evidentiary basis for a ‘for cause’ removal from a scattered assortment of social media posts and news articles,” U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb wrote last September. “Even if the notice provided had been sufficient, Cook’s due process rights were nevertheless likely violated because she was not given a ‘meaningful opportunity’ to be heard.”
Members of the Supreme Court, too, questioned whether Mr. Trump’s social media post constituted sufficient notice.
“This whole case is irregular, starting with the Truth Social notice or thinking of it as notice at all,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Solicitor General D. John Sauer during oral arguments in January. “It certainly didn’t invite an opportunity to be heard.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson later asked Cook’s lawyer, Paul Clement, about how the Fed governor would receive information about the allegations against her and the chance to contest them.
“Are you conceding that a posting on social media is sufficient notice in a situation like this when the president is seeking to remove a governor for cause?” she asked, later pressing Clement about what to do if Cook didn’t have a Truth Social account.
The Supreme Court has not yet said whether Cook can remain in her job, but appeared likely to reject the president’s attempt to oust her.
Ted Boutrous, a lawyer with the firm Gibson Dunn who has litigated scores of First Amendment cases, said Mr. Trump’s use of social media to make official announcements has become more pronounced in his second term, leaving courts wrestling with how to interpret his posts.
“He’s using Truth Social and these posts to make declarations and announce decisions as president, and so that’s where the courts seem to be going with these issues,” he told CBS News. “When that’s the chosen means of communication, then we should all be able to rely on them for better or worse.”
Beyond Mr. Trump, senior administration officials have also found their social media posts factoring into decisions from judges.
In March, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled in favor of the New York Times in its challenge of the Pentagon’s new restrictive press policy, finding in part that the rules discriminated on the basis of viewpoint in violation of the First Amendment.
Friedman cited a broadside shared to X by chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell calling the New York Times and other news outlets “Trump-hating” and “obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda.” Parnell and another member of the Pentagon’s press team also lambasted the Washington Post on social media over its reporting, including calling for “severe punishment” of its reporters.
Journalists who signed the Pentagon’s new press policy, meanwhile, were praised by officials on social media.
“The undisputed evidence reflects the Policy’s true purpose and practical effect: to weed out disfavored journalists — those who were not, in the Department’s view, ‘on board and willing to serve,’ — and replace them with news entities that are. That is viewpoint discrimination, full stop,” Friedman wrote.
Boutrous, who represented the New York Times and NPR, said the social media posts are direct evidence of viewpoint hostility, which is a violation of the First Amendment.
“It’s really a Trumpian characteristic in that putting hostility and viewpoint discrimination on the record is extremely rare,” he said, adding, “it’s very unusual and it’s very powerful.”