A federal appeals court has dismissed microblogging site Twitter’s lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which accused him of retaliating against the platform for the ban on former President Donald Trump. Twitter had instituted a lifetime ban on Trump due to his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Subsequently, the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) launched an investigation and served a Civil Investigative Demand (CID), demanding Twitter to submit documents related to its content moderation policies. The platform sued Paxton in a district court, alleging “government retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment.” But the district court tossed aside the lawsuit. The case then went to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which has now upheld the district court’s judgment. The three-judge panel of the appeals court argued that the case was not “prudentially ripe” in its 20-page ruling (pdf), and that …