- United States
- Wash.
- Letter
Open a formal investigation into Trump Media's Truth API and refer it to the SEC immediately. This scheme sells Wall Street trading firms machine-readable access to Trump's posts — described by Trump Media's own interim CEO as "market-moving Truths" — for up to $100,000 a month. Trump owns roughly 41 percent of the company through a revocable trust his son controls. That means nearly half of every subscription fee goes directly into the president's pocket while he's still in office.
This isn't a gray area. Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, said it plainly: Trump "cannot sell that information and receive a profit for tipping off other people who will trade on that information before it becomes publicly available." A database of his Truth Social posts matched against his own financial disclosures found at least 44 stock purchases across 21 companies in the week before he posted favorably about those firms. That's not coincidence — that's a pattern.
Senators Warren and Schiff have already written the SEC. Republican senators Cassidy, Collins, Tillis, and Murkowski have all raised alarms. The Emoluments Clause exists precisely for this. Your constituents are being cut out of a market that the president is selling access to — and he's keeping half the check. Do your job and demand accountability.