For as long as any of us can remember, when a president made an announcement, everyone heard it at the same time. The reporter in the briefing room, the farmer checking the news on his phone, and the hedge fund manager watching six screens at once all got the same words at the same moment, and what they did next was up to them. And now, it seems, this was so normal we took it for granted.
Truth Social, the social media platform owned by President Trump’s media company, has found a way to sell it. Under a new arrangement, users can pay $100,000 a month to see posts from the president and other government officials before the rest of the country does. High-frequency trading firms have reportedly already been willing to pay for the head start, which tells you how valuable the information is and exactly who is lining up to buy it.
Our strategic litigation partner, Campaign Legal Center (CLC), is helping lead the fight to stop it, and last week they brought some serious firepower into the case.
What’s Actually for Sale
Truth Social is owned by Trump Media & Technology Group, and President Trump holds at least 41 percent of the company, a stake worth at least $1 billion. When a subscription brings in money or makes the platform more valuable, he benefits personally. These posts also carry real weight, because White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that the president’s Truth Social posts are the official policy of the administration, coming “straight from the horse’s mouth.”
So what’s being sold is advance notice of government decisions.
Think about the small business owner waiting to find out about a new tariff, the military family following news about the war in Iran, or the parent watching for a public health decision. Under this scheme, all of them wait in line while the same news is quietly handed to traders who can afford to pay for a jump on the markets.
Who’s Challenging It
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in New York by The Intercept, an investigative news outlet, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit that defends the rights of journalists. They argue that reporters and the public have always had equal and simultaneous access to what the president says, and that selling early access to a paying few violates both the First Amendment and the Constitution’s promise of equal protection under the law. They’ve asked the judge for a preliminary injunction, which would shut the scheme down while the case moves forward.
On September 21, Campaign Legal Center filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing that request on behalf of 53 former federal prosecutors and FBI agents who spent their careers working on public corruption cases. Together they served under 11 presidential administrations, Republican and Democratic, and they’ve put in more than 880 years of combined government service. The group includes Ty Cobb, who served as a White House lawyer during President Trump’s first term, and Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general of the Justice Department.
These are people who know what corruption looks like because they spent decades building cases against it, and when they looked at this scheme, they recognized it for exactly what it is.
Five Laws This Scheme Could Break
CLC identified five federal criminal laws that the arrangement would likely violate, and a few of them are easier to understand than you might expect.
Insider trading. It’s illegal for government officials to tip off outsiders about market-moving information that the public doesn’t have yet, and it’s illegal for those outsiders to trade on it. The prosecutors offer a simple example. Suppose the president decides to put tariffs on a country that makes computer chips and posts the news for paying subscribers at 9 a.m., a subscriber sells chip stocks at 9:05, and the public sees the post at 10, when chip stocks drop. That looks exactly like a secret text message to a friend on Wall Street, except that it comes with a monthly bill.
Illegal gratuities. Federal law makes it a crime for a public official to accept something of value because of an official act, and it’s also a crime to give it. Nobody has to prove a specific favor was traded, since the payment itself is enough. Someone paying more than $1 million a year for early access to presidential decisions isn’t paying for the pleasure of reading posts early.
Conflicts of interest. Executive branch officials can’t take part in government business where they have a personal financial stake. The brief compares it to the head of NASA also running the company that sells NASA its rockets, and then points out that this case is worse, because the president sits on one side of the deal, his company sits on the other, and the product for sale is his own words.
Outside pay for a public job. The president earns a fixed government salary, and federal law bars anyone from adding to what an executive branch official is paid for doing the job. Money flowing to the president’s company from people buying access to his official announcements could fall squarely into that category.
Leaking confidential government information. The Trade Secrets Act makes it a crime for federal officials to disclose certain confidential business information they learn on the job, such as which company is about to win a government contract. A system built around telling paying customers first puts that kind of disclosure on the menu.
The prosecutors are careful and clear about the limits of their argument. They don’t try to settle whether these laws apply to a sitting president or whether he could claim immunity, and they openly acknowledge how hard it is to prove any crime in front of a jury, especially against powerful people with deep pockets. Their point is simpler and harder to argue with, which is that if serious people can reasonably ask whether a government arrangement breaks five criminal laws, it can’t possibly serve a legitimate public purpose, and the court should stop it.
A Warning From the Founders
None of this would have surprised the people who wrote the Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton warned in the Federalist Papers that an “avaricious man” (note: avaricious is defined as showing an extremely strong, obsessive desire to acquire and hoard wealth or material possessions) might someday hold the presidency and feel a strong pull to cash in on the office while he had it. That fear is exactly why the Constitution fixes the president’s salary and bars gifts and payments meant to sway him, and why Congress later passed the laws the prosecutors cite in their brief.
Where You Come In
Litigation like this one doesn’t happen by accident. They take experienced lawyers, careful research, clients, experts, and the patience to see a fight through months or even years of motions, hearings, and appeals, often against opponents with nearly unlimited resources. Campaign Legal Center is one of the few organizations in the country with the skill and the track record to take on this work, and that’s why our movement supports their work.
When you support Bright America, you’re helping make cases like this possible. Elections matter a great deal, but the rules that keep public office from turning into a private business only hold up when someone is willing to walk into court and defend them. If you believe that the president demanding payment to learn about his official acts, and that public service shouldn’t come with a price tag, we hope you’ll stand with us.