A quick glance at the news at any given notice reveals that our newly elected President is neck deep in lawsuits, especially since his travel ban was introduced. During the last few weeks we’ve seen him settle a few of them, and it would seem that his campaign has settled another one related to the campaign’s use of mass text messaging during the election. You heard that correctly, mass text messaging. It would seem the Trump campaign didn’t only use to Twitter.
A quick glance at the news at any given moment reveals that our newly elected President is neck deep in lawsuits, especially since his travel ban was introduced. During the last few weeks, we’ve seen President Trump settle a few of them, and it would seem that his campaign has settled another one related to the campaign’s use of mass text messaging during the election. You heard that correctly, mass text messaging. It would seem the Trump campaign didn’t only use to Twitter.
The lawsuit came about when two people from the Chicago-area “sued the Trump campaign last year over texting, claiming the campaign used auto-dialing equipment to blast out bulk messages in violation of the.” However, the Trump campaign pushed back, claiming the “law violates the First Amendment protections of free speech.”
But what is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act? Why did the Trump campaign have such a problem with it? For starters, the law itself “outlaws auto-dialing text messages except in emergencies and when users consent.” However, according to a lawyer for the campaign, Martin Jaszczuk, the “plaintiffs failed to prove the campaign used auto-dialing.” He added that “the law is unconstitutional because it favors some forms of speech over others by allowing debt-collection calls,” but not “political messages.”
As for the apparent settlement, it was all very hush-hush. According to the campaign’s Federal Election Commission filing, the law firm defending the Trump campaign, Locke Lord, received $200,000 from the campaign back at the tail end of December. Then suddenly, on January 11 of this year, the “plaintiffs dropped the case” without submitting “a settlement for the judge to approve or say why they were withdrawing their claims.” Since then, multiple campaign officials and lawyers for both sides have declined to comment.
So how do we know the case settled? Well, the $200,000 payment to Locke Lord was “much larger and in a round number,” leaving some to suggest that, “alongside the timing of the plaintiffs’ decision to drop their claims — that the money was used to settle the case.”
In addition to the strange hush, hush nature of the settlement, the case also “created the unusual situation where the government had to consider defending a law against its own president.” Though the Justice Department certainly could have investigated the campaign’s claim that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act was unconstitutional, they decided on November 21 of last year not to step in. When asked why, the department declined to comment.
Now that Trump is our president, it will be interesting to see how different government agencies, including the Justice Department, approach and handle all of his legal disputes. It’ll be an entertaining four years, that’s for sure.
Sources:
Trump Campaign Appears To Settle Texting Lawsuit
Class Action Settled vs Trump Campaign Over Unauthorized Text Messages
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