The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation sued US President Donald Trump and senior White House officials on Wednesday, arguing that a Trump Media service selling faster access to the president’s Truth Social posts for up to $100,000 a month violates the constitutional right to equal access to official government information.
The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, names Trump in his official capacity alongside White House Executive Assistant Natalie Harp, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Scavino, the Executive Office of the President and the White House Office as defendants, according to Quartz.
The plaintiffs argue the arrangement, in which paying subscribers receive the president’s official announcements before the general public, violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of equal access to a president’s public statements and the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable conditions for government benefits.
Trump Truth Social API Lawsuit: What Exactly Does Truth API Sell, And To Whom?
Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, began selling direct access to its application programming interface last quarter, offering subscribers real-time access to Trump’s posts within milliseconds of publication. Truth API costs $100,000 per month, or $60,000 per month with a three-year commitment, with the complaint noting Trump Media had signed more than ten customer agreements by 10 August, primarily involving financial news organisations and high-frequency trading firms.
Trump Media interim chief executive Kevin McGurn told investors during the company’s second-quarter earnings call that the company was in active discussions with hyperscalers, large news organisations and developers of large language models about expanding the service further.
Trump Truth Social API Lawsuit: Why Do The Plaintiffs Say This Crosses A Constitutional Line?
Nikhel Sus, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which represents the plaintiffs, argued that even a minimal delay in public access is legally significant.
“There’s no de minimis exception for restrictions on fundamental First Amendment rights,” Sus told CNN. The Intercept’s reporting noted that Trump has posted between 9,000 and 11,000 times on Truth Social since retaking office in January 2025, and because those posts frequently carry no accompanying announcement from the White House, they function as the sole channel through which certain official government news reaches the public.
Trump Truth Social API Lawsuit: How Does Trump Personally Benefit From The Service?
The lawsuit highlights Trump’s direct financial stake in the arrangement. Trump’s ownership stake in Trump Media, held through the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust with Trump as its sole beneficiary, was valued at roughly $4 billion when he retook office, according to The Intercept, though the value of his holding has since fallen to around $1 billion as the company’s stock has declined.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff had already written to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins last month asking the agency to examine whether the service violated federal securities law barring insider trading and market manipulation.
Trump Truth Social API Lawsuit: How Has Trump Media Defended The Service?
Company officials have framed Truth API purely as a commercial data product rather than a preferential channel for government information. McGurn described the offering during the earnings call as providing “machine-readable feeds of publicly available Truth posts from the platform’s top accounts in milliseconds,” adding that “our customers will get published and publicly available posts fractionally faster.”
In a July press release, McGurn said the service was designed to advance the company’s “strategy to monetise proprietary assets through a high-margin, recurring revenue stream,” predicting it would become “a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue for the company, creating lasting value for shareholders.” CNBC said it had requested comment from the White House on the lawsuit, though no response had been issued as of publication.
