NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump was sued in federal court Wednesday to stop him from making money off a new, paid service at his Truth Social company offering early, exclusive access to his posts on U.S. policy.
The lawsuit alleges that Trump's deal to post first on his own company's site about U.S. policy decisions on war, tariffs and other issues violates the Constitution and that official announcements should be made available to everyone at the same time. The suit comes after his media company, Trump Media & Technology, rolled out a new subscription service earlier this month charging Wall Street firms as much as $100,000 a month to get his posts faster so they can trade off them.
“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,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, a plaintiff in the case along with news outlet The Intercept.
Trump Media said selling fast access to traders is common in its industry, and that the plaintiffs are just trying to silence the president.
“Information from President Trump is disseminated by countless platforms and news outlets, many of which offer subscription APIs," it said in a statement, using the acronym for the fast access service. "Now, left wing activists are trying to wrongfully weaponize the courts to censor him again and harm our shareholders.”
The early access service comes as the publicly traded Trump Media loses hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter and its stock has dropped below $10 from $62 shortly after going public two years ago.
The plaintiffs argue that Trump's deal giving exclusive Truth Social access to his posts for six hours before being distributed elsewhere violates two parts of the Constitution — the First Amendment right to access a president's comments on equal terms with other members of the press and public and the Fifth Amendment prohibitions on charging unreasonable conditions for government benefits.
The suit asks that Trump Media be forced to end both the new paid service, called Truth API, and its exclusive access deal with his company in general.
Even before the new API service was started earlier this month, ethics watchdogs criticized Trump's posting on Truth Social as a brash attempt to profit off the presidency, similar to other money making venture s, especially ones related to cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, the president filed a required annual financial disclosure report that showed he took in more than a $1 billion last year from new crypto businesses that his administration regulates.
Among other moves since he was reelected, Trump's digital finance company, World Liberty Financial, got a $500 million investment from a company tied to the government of the United Arab Emirates and sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of special souvenir Trump meme coins to his fans and possible federal favor seekers, including a billionaire fighting a federal law suit that was later paused, then settled.
In addition to the president, the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York names his deputy chief of staff Daniel Scavino and his executive assistant Natalie J. Harp as defendants.
FILE - The download screen for the Truth Social app is displayed on a laptop computer, March 20, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
Washington (AP) — U.S. airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last year killed more than 150 civilians, according to a Pentagon review of the attacks, which comes as concerns rise over civilian casualties during military campaigns under the Trump administration.
The unclassified assessment, obtained by The Associated Press, was sent to Congress as part of an annual report on civilian casualties and reported earlier by NBC News. A Pentagon official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department will submit the report in the coming months but had nothing more to announce.
Civilian casualties from U.S. military operations have drawn concerns, including from lawmakers in Congress, after a U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school in the opening days of this year’s war, killing up to 168 people. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is said to have slashed the size of an office focused on reducing civilian harm, the AP has reported.
The Pentagon review focused on three airstrikes in April 2025 that were launched during the U.S. campaign against the Houthis. The militants were attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route that leads to the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean, as well as Israel.
Those strikes targeted hostile forces in or near Yemen’s rebel-held capital city of Sanaa as well as the Ras Isa port, the report said. A total of 153 civilians were killed and 243 were injured.
The strike on the port was the most deadly, killing 80 people and injuring 171 others. It sent massive fireballs billowing skyward and turned tanker trucks into burning wrecks. The Houthis aired graphic footage of the aftermath on their al-Masirah satellite news channel, showing corpses strewn about the port.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said at the time that the "strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen.”
“U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years,” U.S. Central Command said in its statement in April 2025.
The command determined that the three strikes “more likely than not” resulted in civilian harm, the review said. The information was based on U.S. intelligence sources, imagery and open-source reporting.
It was determined that condolence payments were not appropriate for the three strikes, according to the Pentagon’s review, which did not explain why that was the case.
Such payments may be one of several responses when U.S. military operations injure or kill a civilian, the review stated, adding that they’re not required by law and not an admission of wrongdoing.
Such payments are not unheard of. Following an errant drone strike in Afghanistan that killed 10 people, seven of them children, in 2021, the Pentagon said it was committed to offering condolence payments to relatives.
The U.S. military first launched attacks against the Houthis in 2023, during the Biden administration, after the militants started launching drones and missiles at commercial ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis said the attacks were aimed at stopping Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and supporting the Palestinians, though they occurred as the Houthis tried to strengthen their position in Yemen.
The U.S.-led campaign against the Houthi rebels turned into the most intense running sea battle the Navy had faced since World War II, U.S. military leaders and experts told the AP in 2024. American fighter jets and Navy destroyers shot down Houthi drones and missiles that were launched at commercial vessels and U.S. warships.
The Houthis now are carrying out a growing number of strikes against government forces in Yemen and oil facilities in neighboring Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemeni government, and the kingdom’s shipping in the Red Sea.
Fears are growing that the renewed violence could reignite Yemen’s civil war following a 2022 truce and open a new front in the Middle East war.
FILE - This photo taken from video released by Al Masirah TV channel shows medics carrying a wounded man into the hospital after U.S. airstrikes targeted the Ras Isa oil port held by Yemen's Houthi rebels in Hodeida, Yemen, April 18, 2025.( Al Masirah TV via AP, File)
FILE - This photo taken from video released by Al Masirah TV channel shows medics carrying a dead person after U.S. airstrikes targeted the Ras Isa oil port held by Yemen's Houthi rebels in Hodeida, Yemen, April 18, 2025.( Al Masirah TV via AP, File)
FILE - In this photo taken from video released by Al Masirah TV channel shows a burning oil tanker after U.S. airstrikes targeted the Ras Isa oil port held by Yemen's Houthi rebels in Hodeida, Yemen, April 18, 2025.( Al Masirah TV via AP, File)
