Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times,
President Donald Trump was sued on Wednesday by two news organizations seeking to shut down a service that sells paid access to the president's posts on his Truth Social platform.
The lawsuit, filed on Aug. 12 in Manhattan federal court by The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, challenges Truth API, launched on Aug. 1, a feed offered by Trump Media & Technology Group, which charges up to $100,000 a month for early access to 10 high-profile Truth Social accounts, including Trump's.
Trump often uses his Truth Social account to post news.
The lawsuit targets Trump in his official capacity as U.S. president, along with Natalie J. Harp in her official capacity as the president's executive assistant.
It also names Daniel Scavino (in his official capacity as White House deputy chief of staff and director of the White House Personnel Office), the Executive Office of the President, and the White House Office.
"Truth API delivers a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform's most market-moving Truths while advancing our strategy to monetize proprietary assets through a high-margin, recurring revenue stream," Trump Media's interim chief executive, Kevin McGurn, said in a July 16 statement.
"As adoption grows, we expect Truth API to become a meaningful, ongoing source of revenue for the company, creating lasting value for shareholders."
In an Aug. 10 earnings call, McGurn said the company had signed more than 10 customer agreements for Truth API, primarily with "high-frequency trading firms," at "rates generally in the range of $60,000-$100,000 a month."
In the complaint, the plaintiffs called the Truth API service an "astounding scheme" because the president stands to gain financially when subscribers sign up.
"This scheme is extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional, and Plaintiffs bring this case to stop it," the plaintiffs said.
The lawsuit claimed that granting preferential access to Trump's public statements to paid subscribers violates the First Amendment, which it says guarantees Americans equal access to the president's public announcements, as well as the Fifth Amendment, which it says prohibits the government from imposing extortionate or unreasonable conditions on the availability of government benefits.
"There is no legitimate interest, let alone a significant one, in permitting President Trump to profit from selling government information," it said.
"The President stands to gain financially by giving 'market-moving' government information to those who are willing and able to pay his personal company."
According to the complaint, many of Trump's 9,000 to 11,000 Truth Social posts and reposts during his second White House term were not followed by official White House statements.
A Trump Media & Technology Group spokesman told The Epoch Times by email that information from Trump is "disseminated by countless platforms and news outlets, many of which offer subscription APIs."
He said that one of those channels is Truth Social, "which was founded as an uncancellable haven for free speech after the President was unjustly deplatformed."
"Now, left-wing activists are trying to wrongfully weaponize the courts to censor him again and harm our shareholders," he added.
The president is Trump Media's largest shareholder. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is a Trump Media director and oversees the trust.
Other accounts offered through Truth API include those of Vice President JD Vance, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., FBI Director Kash Patel, and the White House itself, the complaint said, adding that these are the 10 most popular accounts on Truth Social
"Trump is trying to enrich himself by privatizing government information that he has no right to sell," said Ben Muessig, editor-in-chief of online news outlet The Intercept.
"A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls is so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago," said Freedom of the Press Foundation's chief of advocacy Seth Stern.
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.
Reuters contributed to this report.