President Donald Trump's use of Twitter has complicated his administration's legal arguments in several cases, CNN reports.
His tweets about the Russia dossier, his travel ban, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could impact his administration's legal cases should those be considered official statements from the president.
"Legally speaking, the tweets are quite significant. They provide a window into his beliefs and motivations," Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general in President Barack Obama's administration, told CNN. Katyal is currently heading a legal case against Trump's travel ban.
Lawyers from the James Madison Project, which advocates for government transparency, and Politico told a federal court this week that Trump's tweets are public statements that show he has been informed by U.S. intelligence agencies on the Russia dossier, in the hopes of securing the release of a two-page summary of the dossier, prepared by the U.S. intelligence community. The president's legal team argues that the tweets could be in response to a news report or his own first-hand knowledge of what he has or hasn't done.
"Operating upon the good faith assumption that this court has more important things to do than monitor the president's Twitter feed, the plaintiffs feel they have no choice but to keep this court updated on the continuous official statements by the president in which he specifically and substantively addresses" the issues concerning the lawsuit, the lawyers for the James Madison Project and Politico wrote in their filing this week.
In mid-December, multiple judges on a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia questioned whether to take Trump's tweets into consideration when deciding if the president's travel ban is tainted with anti-Muslim animus, according to CNN.