The Trump administration has hit back at a lawsuit that claims charging Truth Social users $100,000 a month for early access to President Donald Trump’s posts is unconstitutional, calling the complaint “untenable” and demanding the suit be thrown out. Trump and White House aide Natalie Harp were named in a lawsuit filed by Intercept Media and the Freedom of the Press Foundation on August 12, alleging that the subscription plan violates the First and Fifth amendments, as well as federal law. The President stands to gain financially by giving market-moving government information to those who are willing and able to pay his personal company.
The scheme is also unconstitutional… There is no legitimate interest, let alone a significant one, in permitting President Trump to profit from selling government information.” Newsweek has contacted Intercept Media and the Freedom of the Press Foundation for comment. Responding to the filing on Monday, Trump’s legal counsel argued that Americans had no right to “real-time” access to presidential statements, and that Truth Social was a private business that should not be subject to such a challenge. Launched on August 1, the “Truth API” program provides subscribers with early access to Truth Social posts from Trump and a number of other senior administration officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino (also named in the lawsuit), Health Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr., Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FBI Director Kash Patel. Harp, one of the president's closest and most trusted aides, has been named as a defendant due to her role as the primary White House staffer ”responsible for running Trump's Truth Social account," the lawsuit claims. But critics have claimed that the plan promotes insider trading, noting the frequency with which the Trump administration uses Truth Social to make major policy announcements and official statements.
A second lawsuit filed against the administration on September 17 makes similar claims, noting that Trump and several senior government officials hold a stake in the company. Trump transferred his shares in the group to a trust before beginning his second term in January 2025 and remains the group’s largest shareholder and sole beneficiary, the lawsuit notes. Plaintiffs claim that the Truth API is unconstitutional, violating the First and Fifth amendments.
The president’s lawyers, meanwhile, claim that invoking a constitutional claim over early access to a presidential statement would “call into constitutional question most, if not all, methods of public communication,” including exclusive interviews given to reporters. Intercept Media and the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s lawsuit is one of several filed against the Trump administration over its use of Truth API.
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