Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / 'PROFOUNDLY corrupt' Trump SUED over scheme to sell access to Truth Social posts

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'PROFOUNDLY corrupt' Trump SUED over scheme to sell access to Truth Social posts · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional. Is how the new feature of
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: truth Social where individuals can pay extra for early access
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to the president's post, is described in a new lawsuit
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  Speaker 1: file today Intercept Media and the Freedom of the Press
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Organization aursuing Donald Trump over the new service. The suit
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  Speaker 1: says this scheme is profoundly corrupt. The President stands to
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  Speaker 1: gain financially by giving market moving government information to those
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  Speaker 1: who are willing and able to pay his personal company.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I want to bring in legal analysts and former US
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  Speaker 1: attorney Joyce Vance. She is now a professor at the
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  Speaker 1: University of Alabama School of Law. Plus writer and editor
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  Speaker 1: for Protect Democracy Amanda Carpenter is here. Donald Sherman is
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  Speaker 1: still with us. His group crew brought the lawsuit trying
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  Speaker 1: to stop Donald Trump from profiting off advance access to
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  Speaker 1: his post. Donald tell me about this suit.
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  Speaker 2: Well, once again the President is selling access. This time
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  Speaker 2: it relates to market moving information, which includes true social
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  Speaker 2: posts from the President and other government officials that have
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  Speaker 2: a significant impact on our economy and on small investors.
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  Speaker 2: More importantly, for our clients, the INTERCEP and the Free
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  Speaker 2: Press Foundation granting this kind of preferential access to the
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  Speaker 2: president's public statements to paid subscribers violates their First Amendment rights,
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  Speaker 2: which guarantee Americans equal access to the president's public announcements.
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  Speaker 2: Then it also violates the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the
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  Speaker 2: government from imposing extortionate or unreasonable conditions on the availability
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  Speaker 2: of government benefits. And I think having to pay one
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  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars per month to quickly access the president's
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  Speaker 2: official statements certainly qualifies as that.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Choyce. I believe that you and I were on maybe
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  Speaker 1: a week or two ago when this news came out,
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  Speaker 1: and I said to you, how is this legal? And
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that it is. Of the arguments that
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  Speaker 1: are being made in this suit, which do you think
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  Speaker 1: is most likely to persuade a judge.
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  Speaker 3: Well, all of them, for exactly the reasons you know
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  Speaker 3: that we just pointed out. In any other universe, this
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  Speaker 3: whole scenario would be laughable. The idea that a president
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  Speaker 3: would sell access to market moving information, which is how
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  Speaker 3: they advertise this. There's reporting that they've already got ten subscribers,
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  Speaker 3: so they're making about a million dollars a month off
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  Speaker 3: of this already. It's insane, and so crewe when they
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  Speaker 3: call it profoundly corrupt in their complaint, they hit the
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  Speaker 3: nail on the head. There are legitimate First and Fifth
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  Speaker 3: Amendment claims here, both free speech free access claims, as
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  Speaker 3: well as the equal protection claims. I would expect to
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  Speaker 3: see a judge rule that this is unconstitutional for all
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  Speaker 3: of the above reasons.
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  Speaker 1: So, Amanda, a question that I have occasion to ask
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  Speaker 1: you more often than I would like. Where's the outrage,
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  Speaker 1: particularly on the part of Republicans of corruption that is
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  Speaker 1: just happening out in the open.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: Well, you don't see it from his MAGA defenders in Congress, unfortunately,
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  Speaker 4: But I do think this is one of those stories
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  Speaker 4: where people saw it they instinctively knew there's something wrong
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  Speaker 4: with that. I think the suit is definitely strong and
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: First Amendment in Fifth Amendment grounds. But on the conflict
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  Speaker 4: of interest angle, the idea that a president is making
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  Speaker 4: a commercially viable product off his public speech that is
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  Speaker 4: supposed to be in the public interest. He created his
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  Speaker 4: own network. He is not using official government channels which
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  Speaker 4: everybody has equal access to. He created a private social
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  Speaker 4: media channel that he is selling access to off his
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  Speaker 4: public speech. I mean, people know there's something wrong with that.
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  Speaker 4: You shouldn't be able to monetize the presidency in this
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  Speaker 4: kind of fashion. He is making the policy and also
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  Speaker 4: profiting off the policy, and this is just such a
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  Speaker 4: brazen instance of it. I think you can see in
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  Speaker 4: other arenas, but especially when it comes to this he's
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  Speaker 4: making policy statements and then making money personally off those statements.
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  Speaker 4: It's particularly outrageous.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and especially because there sort of can be a
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  Speaker 1: relationship that moves both ways, right where there is an
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  Speaker 1: incentive on his part to begin to calculate some of
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  Speaker 1: his policies based on the way in which they move
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  Speaker 1: the market. Storms, can you give us a sense of
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  Speaker 1: timeline here what happens next with the suit?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the next thing that happens is that the president
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  Speaker 2: and the other defendants in the case have to respond. Certainly,
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  Speaker 2: we would look we look forward to this case moving
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  Speaker 2: forward as quickly as possible. But I think you know,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: as the other panelists said, this is not complex and
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  Speaker 2: you don't need to be an ethics expert or a
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  Speaker 2: legal expert to understand the issues here. The problem with
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  Speaker 2: the president selling access to his public statements, which are
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: in fact government records, and so we are hopeful that
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: the court will move quickly, and certainly we're going to
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  Speaker 2: use all of the legal tools at our disposal to
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: move this case along as quickly as we can so
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  Speaker 2: that we can get resolution on behalf of our clients
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  Speaker 2: and so that this corrupt scheme that the president has
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  Speaker 2: orchestrated with his private business is unwound.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things I have trouble wrapping my mind around, Joyce,
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  Speaker 1: given that this is not my area of expertise, is
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  Speaker 1: that we are talking about milliseconds, and that milliseconds in
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  Speaker 1: this case can amount to two millions. Can you give
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  Speaker 1: us just a sense of the size and scale of
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  Speaker 1: the corruption, even if it is only ten who are
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  Speaker 1: currently subscribed to the service.
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  Speaker 3: You know, the number of subscribers may seem small, but
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  Speaker 3: it's absolutely immense when you think about the kind of
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  Speaker 3: information this present traffics in on social media. There's no
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  Speaker 3: way of knowing how he might evolve into this new
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  Speaker 3: profit model and continue to monetize the presidency. But there
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  Speaker 3: are all sorts of decisions. Perhaps some of that impact
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  Speaker 3: the prediction markets that have cropped up around political decisions,
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  Speaker 3: but perhaps, and I think more on the darker side
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  Speaker 3: of the equation, decisions about military movement, decisions about policy changes,
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  Speaker 3: decisions about what companies might be getting contracts in what
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  Speaker 3: area of government. The real problem here is it's absolutely
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  Speaker 3: unbounded in scope in terms of what the president might
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  Speaker 3: choose to reveal and who might then have forepay access
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  Speaker 3: to it.