Left-wing media groups sued President Trump over Truth Social's paid early-access feed, the latest lawfare attack on his business empire.
President Donald Trump was hit with yet another lawsuit Wednesday, this time from left-wing media organizations challenging Truth Social's new Truth API service that gives paying customers split-second early access to his posts. The suit, filed in federal court in New York, is the latest in a long line of lawfare attacks aimed at the president and his business ventures.
Two activist-backed media groups -- The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation -- filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They are represented by the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Yale Law School's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, the Public Integrity Project, and the firm Altshuler Berzon.
The complaint claims the Truth API service violates the First Amendment's guarantee of equal access to the president's public announcements, along with the Fifth Amendment's protections against unreasonable conditions on government benefits. It asks the court to declare the service unlawful and block the president from posting official government information exclusively on Truth Social.
Plaintiffs call the arrangement "extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional" and argue the president stands to profit by giving market-moving government information to those willing to pay his company. Alongside Trump, the lawsuit names deputy chief of staff Daniel Scavino, executive assistant Natalie Harp, the Executive Office of the President, and the White House Office as defendants.
Trump Media and Technology Group unveiled Truth API in mid-July. The service delivers machine-readable feeds of posts from the president and other high-profile accounts on the platform within milliseconds of publication -- a data product aimed squarely at Wall Street firms.
Subscriptions run up to $100,000 a month, with discounts for longer commitments. The company has confirmed more than 10 customer agreements, most of them with high-frequency trading firms, at prices generally ranging from $60,000 to $100,000 a month. TMTG has said the product simply provides published, publicly available posts a fraction of a second faster -- a standard data-feed model common across the financial industry.
The president regularly uses Truth Social to announce major developments, from the Iran war to trade policy, announcements that can move markets in real time. That visibility is exactly why trading firms signed up for the feed.
Trump Media dismissed the lawsuit as an attempt by left-wing activists to silence the president. Company officials noted that selling fast access to data is common practice in the industry and argued the plaintiffs are simply trying to censor the president's speech.
The suit follows pressure from Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff, who last month urged an investigation into the service. The Wall Street Journal has reported that trading companies were among the first subscribers. None of that changes the core reality: the service is a voluntary, transparent commercial product, and no one is forced to pay for it.
This is also far from the first time activist groups have sued Trump or his companies. Past efforts have largely failed in court, and the pattern is familiar -- file a headline-grabbing suit, hope the press coverage does the damage, and let the legal system sort out the merits later.
Trump Media is expected to fight the case aggressively, and a motion to dismiss is likely in the coming weeks. Legal experts note the First Amendment questions cut both ways: the president has broad latitude over how he communicates, and private companies routinely sell faster data access to financial clients.
For now, Truth API remains live and its customers remain onboard. If the last several years of litigation against the president are any guide, this lawsuit will face steep hurdles in court -- and the president will keep using his platform to communicate directly with the American people, on his own terms.
Left-wing media groups sued President Trump over Truth Social's paid early-access feed, the latest lawfare attack on his business empire.
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