The legal team at Wilmer Hale defending Twitter from Trump’s bullshit lawsuit should be sanctioned for figuratively smothering Trump’s face in a puddle and spitting on him after they already shoved him down on a muddy hill in this exquisitely written motion to dismiss. Some lowlights:

• “Plaintiffs’ theory of coercion rests on isolated statements by individual congressmembers supporting Section 230 reform or criticizing social media platforms’ moderation practices. As Twitter explained, these statements were not threats. They did not tie any real prospect of amending Section 230 to the challenged content moderation decisions and certainly do not establish the ‘something more’ required to sue a private party for a constitutional violation.”

• “Plaintiffs erroneously analogize this case to a trio of Jim Crow-era cases in which the Supreme Court overturned criminal trespass convictions of protesters who conducted ‘sit-ins’ at, and refused to leave, segregated restaurants. Plaintiffs theorize that those cases show that private conduct can become state action – with private actors subjected to liability for violating the U.S. Constitution – when government coercion calls for adverse treatment of a large group of people rather than particular individuals…”

• “Numerous courts in this District have squarely rejected Plaintiffs’ theory that Section 230 converts a private platform’s content-moderation decisions into the official action of the state, explaining that Section 230 does not require private parties to do anything and so is not coercive. Plaintiffs argue those courts were wrong because Section 230 creates state action by ‘enabling’ discriminatory conduct. That is triply wrong.“

• “Plaintiffs’ opposition appears to concede, by its silence, that they do not and cannot allege joint state action based on a theory of ‘substantial coordination.’ Instead, they argue only that the Complaint establishes joint action through conspiracy.”

• “Similarly unavailing is Plaintiffs’ attempt to establish conspiracy based on a memo—apparently written by Congressional staffers – that Plaintiffs falsely portray as having stated that ‘platforms often ramp up their efforts against [conservative] content in response to social and political pressure.’ Opp. 4-5 (bracketed alteration by Plaintiffs). In fact, the memo refers not to ‘conservative’ content, but to misinformation and extremist content.‘ But even if Plaintiffs’ portrayal were accurate, the memo gets them nowhere. This kind of statement evinces, at most, a shared goal (here, to prevent the spread of misinformation)…”

This is absolute savagery. It’s almost a human rights violation. Wilmer Hale attorneys Patrick Carome, Ari Holtzblatt, Tom Sprankling, and Felicia Ellsworth must be sanctioned by US District Court Judge James Donato to funnel six Keystone Lights each at the afterparty for this lawsuit.