Two media organizations filed a federal lawsuit in Manhattan on Wednesday accusing President Donald Trump of violating the Constitution by selling early access to his Truth Social posts, which frequently move financial markets, through a paid service charging up to $100,000 per month.
The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation brought the civil suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They argue that Truth API, a data feed launched by Trump Media & Technology Group, gives paying subscribers preferential access to official government announcements for unreasonable sums. The complaint describes the arrangement as “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional.”
Trump is the largest shareholder in Trump Media through the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. That trust owns about 41% of the company, a stake worth more than $1 billion. He is the trust’s sole beneficiary.
How the service works
Truth API delivers posts from Trump and other high-profile accounts in milliseconds, arriving seconds before they appear for the general public. More than 10 firms now pay for the service, at rates generally ranging from $60,000 to $100,000 a month, with a discounted rate of $60,000 available for three-year commitments. Trump Media interim CEO Kevin McGurn said on a quarterly earnings call that the product provides machine-readable feeds of publicly available posts from the platform’s top accounts, and that customers receive posts “fractionally faster.” He said the company was in active discussions with hyperscalers, large news organizations, and developers of large language models, and that the next phase of the API would include broader distribution through news feeds, financial data terminals, and specialty publications.
The service covers the 10 most popular accounts on Truth Social. After Trump, those include the White House, Vice President JD Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy. Trump is the most followed person on the platform, with about 13 million followers. Trump Media disclosed on 10 August that its first customers included financial news outlets and high-frequency trading firms, and that it was exploring licensing the data to prediction markets.
The constitutional claims
The lawsuit alleges that Truth API violates the First and Fifth Amendments by giving subscribers preferential access to Trump’s public announcements. Since resuming office in January 2025, Trump has published between 9,000 and 11,000 posts on Truth Social. Often, the suit says, his posts have no corresponding announcement from the White House, making them the only way to get official government news.
The plaintiffs argue that the setup gives an unfair advantage to those who can afford it. Market-sensitive information reaches paying clients first. Trump has a history of using Truth Social to disclose news that moves markets, including posts on tariffs and the war on Iran that triggered swings in stock and oil prices.
“Nothing could be more antithetical to the free, independent press than the president charging for early access to his public announcements,” said David Bralow, chief legal officer at The Intercept. Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the arrangement is “so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago.”
The suit also raises concerns about the historical record. Truth API subscribers get access to an archive of posts stretching back to 2022, including ones later deleted or altered. McGurn has said the company intends to create friction for outside groups that try to scrape and archive Trump’s posts through other means.
The complaint names as defendants Trump, his executive assistant Natalie Harp, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, the Executive Office of the President, and the White House Office. Harp and Scavino are each known to post to Truth Social on the president’s behalf.
Trump Media & Technology Group dismissed the lawsuit. A spokesperson said information from Trump is disseminated by countless platforms and news outlets, many of which offer subscription APIs, and accused the plaintiffs of being “left-wing activists” trying to weaponize the courts to censor the president and harm shareholders. The spokesperson also accused the Freedom of the Press Foundation of violating Truth Social’s terms of service.
The lawsuit follows criticism from Democratic Senators Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren, who urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine whether the service amounts to market manipulation benefiting insiders at the expense of ordinary investors. The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the arrangement unlawful and to bar the administration from relying on Truth Social as the exclusive venue for official announcements while it sells preferential access. The White House has not commented.