Two media organizations, The Intercept and Freedom of the Press Foundation, filed a federal lawsuit against US President Donald Trump on August 12, 2026. The suit challenges Trump’s company's plan to sell faster, prioritized access to Trump’s and other top users' posts on the Truth Social platform through a paid product called Truth API [1, 2, 3, 4].
Truth API, which launched on August 1, 2026, offers subscribers monthly fees between $60,000 and $100,000 to receive posts milliseconds earlier than the general public [3, 5, 6]. More than 10 customers had subscribed to the service by early August, including high-frequency trading firms and some news organizations [2, 4, 5].
The lawsuit argues that the scheme is "extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional," as it grants paying customers early access to market-moving information posted by the sitting president. The plaintiffs claim that the Truth API violates the US Constitution’s First Amendment by restricting equal access to official presidential posts and the Fifth Amendment by charging arbitrary fees for government information [1, 3, 6, 7]. Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation said, "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." [3]
The lawsuit names Trump in his official capacity, along with White House executive assistant Natalie Harp and Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Scavino as defendants [1, 4]. Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates Truth Social, is majority owned by Trump through a trust managed by his son Donald Trump Jr., with an estimated stake value of about $1 billion [1, 6, 8].
Trump Media has dismissed the criticisms. Interim CEO Kevin McGurn said Truth API "provides machine-readable feeds of publicly available Truth posts from the platform's top accounts in milliseconds. Our customers will get published and publicly available posts fractionally faster." The company emphasized the service offers slightly faster access to already public posts and is a common commercial practice [1, 4, 5].
Trump frequently uses Truth Social to announce major developments affecting financial markets such as trade tariffs and Middle East conflicts [2, 6]. The subscription service was announced on July 15, 2026, and launched on August 1 [3, 5]. By August 10, the CEO revealed that more than 10 customers had subscribed [2].
The lawsuit was filed in a New York federal court and remains pending as legal challenges unfold over the sale of early access to presidential posts on a platform run by the president’s own company [1, 6].
