A digital news outlet and press advocacy group sued President Donald Trump on Aug. 12, calling a plan to charge users up to $100,000 per month for early access to Truth Social posts "extraordinary, corrupt and unconstitutional.”
The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, whose legal counsel included Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed the complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Scavino are also listed as defendants.
Trump Media & Technology Group, Truth Social’s parent company, announced Truth API on July 16, describing it as a “new business-to-business data feed that provides licensed, real-time
access to posts from the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts.” Interim CEO Kevin McGurn said the plan would offer a “direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform’s most market-moving Truths” and that the company expected it to become a “meaningful, ongoing source of revenue.”
McGurn told Axios that firms had been scraping Truth Social's data and repackaging it, adding that the company was "going to create a lot of friction for those folks that aren't coming to us directly." He said Truth API would be faster than scraping, according to the outlet.
McGurn later said there were “more than 10” Truth API customers during an Aug. 10 investor call, CBS News reported.
The lawsuit argued in part that the plan violates the First Amendment, which courts have historically held protects the right to receive information. Any restrictions on that right, the complaint said, has to serve a compelling governmental interest to be constitutional.
“There is no legitimate, let alone significant, governmental interest in giving preferential access to government information to those who pay the President’s private company,” the complaint said.
Participants in the lawsuit reiterated those sentiments in their respective public statements on the matter. Freedom of the Press Foundation Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern called the plan a “brazen grift” in the organization’s Aug. 12 news release, while Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington chief counsel Nikhel Sus told The Intercept that all Americans are “entitled to equal access to the president’s public statements.”
The lawsuit asked the court to declare that posting official government information exclusively on Truth Social amid its early access monetization plan is “unconstitutional and unlawful” and to bar the defendants and their associates from posting such information on the platform.
Senators Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Adam Schiff, D-California, asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Trump Media over the plan, calling it a “shocking abuse of the office of the President and the trust of the American public for his personal gain” in a July 29 news release.
USA TODAY reached out to the White House for comment.
BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at bjfrank@usatoday.com.
USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump sued over Truth Social's $100,000 early access plan
