President Donald Trump’s official statements on Truth Social — meaning ones that touch on government affairs whether announcing sweeping tariffs, escalating threats against Iran or rolling out Cabinet changes — are presidential records, making them public property. Yet Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social and in which Trump is the largest shareholder, has announced it is charging up to $100,000 for early access to these statements.
This violates the First Amendment and privatizes public property for Trump’s personal gain.
The White House’s hypocrisy on access to Trump’s records is staggering. At the same time the president is selling advance access to his official communications to those with the deepest pockets, the Justice Department is engaged in an all-out effort to keep the rest of the president’s records completely hidden from the public.
This violates the First Amendment and privatizes public property for Trump’s personal gain.
That’s why my organization, Freedom of the Press Foundation, is in federal court on two fronts to preserve equal public access to these critical documents.
First, we are focusing on the moneymaking venture.
The “Truth API” plot to charge up to $100,000 a month for advance access to Trump’s statements effectively privatizes public property. And because Trump’s messages can upend everything from traditional financial markets to Polymarket, it risks creating a perverse financial incentive for the president to post statements designed to drive more wealthy corporations and donors to subscribe.
Most importantly, it completely ignores constitutional protections guaranteeing the press and the public equal access to official government statements. That’s why FPF and The Intercept, 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, are suing the administration to stop this plan.
Truth API is part of a broader pattern of blurring the lines between government functions and personal gain. Previous efforts include: funneling a $400 million Qatari luxury jet into Trump’s private library foundation under the auspices of needing it to serve as Air Force One, even though he will likely continue using the plane post-presidency, and soliciting private donations, ostensibly for White House construction projects, through Trust for the National Mall, which is a private nonprofit insulated from public oversight.
In addition to making the president money, Truth API should also be understood as part of a broader assault on presidential recordkeeping, which is our second focus.
This attack is underscored by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel’s recent opinion hiding potentially massive swaths of records by extending the presidential communications privilege to individuals outside the government. This umbrella of secrecy, according to the DOJ, now includes corporate lobbyists, political donors and, conceivably, Truth API subscribers. As legal analyst Lisa Rubin noteda, this memo “potentially insulates nearly any conversation” the president has.
Presidents do routinely assert executive privilege to keep internal deliberations secret. Trump, for example, used it to resist the release of the Robert Mueller report, block investigators probing his mishandling of classified records and withhold files related to the Jan. 6 attack.
But expanding that protection to private citizens is unprecedented.
The conversations covered by the new DOJ memo are governed by the Presidential Records Act. As the Obama White House made clear, “The PRA also extends to communications from people outside the White House. So if a lobbyist or CEO emails the White House, that communication is a presidential record and will eventually be made public.”
The DOJ is now trying to slam this door into the White House shut. Presidential communications privilege is already one of the most formidable legal hurdles for journalists filing records requests or lawmakers conducting oversight. And extending the protection to outside advisers has sweeping implications for accountability, given how heavily this administration relies on private citizens to craft policy.
The presidential communications memo also serves as a strategic fallback if the administration’s broader war on the PRA fails.
In April, another OLC opinion declared the PRA unconstitutional, arguing that Trump no longer needs to abide by it. One of the immediate concerns with this position was that Trump could hypothetically destroy — or sell — his records at will, a theory he seems to be testing with Truth API.
We are witnessing an administration asserting total secrecy over the presidential records it doesn’t want the public to see, while monetizing ones that can make the president richer.
There is zero basis to declare the PRA unconstitutional. Eviscerating the law only serves to prevent the public from scrutinizing Trump’s — and all future presidents’ — records, which is why FPF and CREW are also suing to ensure full compliance with the PRA.
We are witnessing an administration asserting total secrecy over the presidential records it doesn’t want the public to see, while monetizing ones that can make the president richer. This hurts the press tasked with reporting the president’s business, leaves the public in the dark about executive decisions and degrades Congress’ ability to investigate potentially unlawful conduct.
Official statements belong to every American equally. A president cannot strip us of timely access to executive decisions simply because he found a way to turn the podium into a private revenue stream.
The president’s business is the public’s business, not a get-rich-quick scheme.
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