Former President Donald Trump has "formally" petitioned Meta to restore access to his Facebook account after it was revoked in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, NBC News reports Wednesday.
"We believe that the ban on President Trump's account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse," Trump's campaign wrote in a Tuesday letter to Meta, according to a copy obtained by NBC News.
Advisers also asked for "a meeting to discuss President Trump's prompt reinstatement to the platform," per NBC News.
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A Meta spokesperson told NBC News that the company "will announce a decision in the coming weeks in line with the process we laid out." Facebook's post-riot ban on Trump's account was initially intended to last only two years, at which point the company and "experts" would "assess whether the risk to public safety has receded," Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, said at the time.
Meanwhile, team Trump is apparently planning for the former president's potential return to Twitter, as well, on which he was recently unblocked after Elon Musk reversed his permanent post-riot suspension.
"Trump is probably coming back to Twitter. It's just a question of how and when," one Republican source with knowledge of the matter told NBC News. "He's been talking about it for weeks, but Trump speaks for Trump, so it's anyone's guess what he'll do or say or when."
Advisers have been workshopping ideas for Trump's first tweet back, another source added. But any return plans are at least slightly complicated by the existence of Truth Social, the president's rival social media company, seeing as he might be required to afford the platform some degree of exclusivity.
A continued Facebook ban would constitute a "deliberate effort by a private company to silence Mr. Trump's political voice," the president's campaign continued in its Tuesday letter. "Moreover, every day that President Trump's political voice remains silenced furthers an inappropriate interference in the American political and election process."
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