Plaintiffs The Intercept and Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of New York today against President Donald Trump and White House employees alleging that President Trump’s scheme to charge $100,000 per month for advance access to official government announcements on Truth Social violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.
The lawsuit alleges that granting preferential access to Trump’s public statements to paid subscribers violates the First Amendment, which guarantees Americans equal access to the president’s public announcements. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from imposing extortionate or unreasonable conditions on the availability of government benefits.
The plaintiffs, represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, The Public Integrity Project and Altshuler Berzon LLP, ask the court to bar Trump and White House employees from carrying out this unconstitutional scheme.
A copy of the complaint is available here.