Former President Donald Trump could be allowed BACK on Facebook in time for the election

Donald Trump could be allowed to return to Facebook in time for the 2024 election season as his account suspension is set to expire next year.

Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, is in charge of lifting the ban – and revealed that Trump could be back on the platform in 2023. 

The former US president, who amassed 35 million followers on the social media site, was banned in 2021 after his comments allegedly incited violence ahead of the Capitol insurrection. 

At the time, the Silicon Valley giant said Trump would only be allowed back on the site if ‘the risk to public safety has receded.’ 

He was also sensationally kicked off Instagram and Twitter in January, in response to the January 6 riot.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta and Facebook’s founder, kicked Trump off of the social media website for his role in the Capitol insurrection

Speaking today at a Semafor Exchange event in Washington, DC, Clegg said: ‘When you make a decision that affects the public realm, you need to act with great caution.

‘You shouldn’t throw your weight about.’

Clegg, who was the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister, said: ‘If we think there is content on our platform which will lead to real-world harm — physical harm — then we feel we have a clear responsibility to act against it.’ 

Trump is said to be facing a challenge for the 2024 Republican nomination from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, although neither man has yet declared their intention to run for the White House.

In the wake of his ban last year, Trump warned that big tech will pay a ‘political price’ for taking away his free speech. 

The decision was an unprecedented move of censorship on a world leader and sparked a global debate over how much control social media and big tech should have.

In an email to supporters in May 2021, Trump fumed: ‘What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country.

‘Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before.

‘The People of our Country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process.’ 

Nick Clegg (pictured) is in charge of lifting Trump’s ban. He previously served as the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister

The Facebook revelation comes at a tough time for Trump – after he was yesterday sued by New York Attorney General Letitia James for allegedly engaging in ‘numerous acts of fraud’ following a three-year probe. 

James announced the $250million suit against the former president, citing a document that accuses Trump and his three adult children of pumping up property far beyond their actual valuations when seeking lending to expand his real estate empire. 

She specifically named Trump and his three adult children, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka Trump, and said they ‘persistently’ inflated the value of assets. 

And although her suit is only a civil matter, James said she would refer evidence she uncovered to other authorities.

James said Trump’s financial statements were ‘greatly inflated, grossly exaggerated, and objectively false,’ and went on to detail many of those valuations that he claimed.

Her suit comes after a three-year probe, and less than two months before the November elections, where Trump isn’t on the ballot but many of his preferred candidates are.

The total ‘fraud’ was in the amount of $250 million, she claimed, and came in financial statements from 2011 to 2021.

That amount is for ‘disgorgement of all financial benefits obtained through the persistent fraudulent practices,’ according to the AG’s office.

Trump was also at the center of a FBI raid in August – when his Mar-a-Lago mansion was ransacked and documents were seized by agents as part of an ongoing investigation. 

The Justice Department has said it was investigating Trump for removing White House records because it believed he illegally held documents including some involving intelligence-gathering and clandestine human sources – among America’s most closely held secrets.

The FBI says it took about 11,000 documents, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office, while serving a court-authorized search warrant at the home on August 8.

Trump and his three children (pictured) were slapped with the $250million lawsuit on Wednesday just weeks after the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home was raided by the FBI