Truth Social Express

Trump owns and runs his own mock-twitter website called Truth Social. Trump has created a new service there. Wall Street firms, and other interested investors, can now be alerted of the “most market-moving” social media posts from President Donald Trump before the general public — as long as they pay the right price.

From what I understand, if you have a subscription to this service, which could cost as high as $100k, Trump’s posts will arrive in your inbox thirty minutes before the general population realizes the post was made.

Trump posts all types of information. He might post that the Banks should really look into crypto currency. Or that he’s about to bomb the shit out of Iran, or EV Cars from China pose a market threat and he’s going to bar them from our country. All of these in the investors hand are actionable and profitable information. And if you can get it early, before the public, it might be more profitable.

The service went live Saturday: a subscription to his social media platform, Truth Social, that allows financial firms and other organizations to get alerts for new posts made by Trump and other top accounts before general users do.

Stunning, right?

Now, before we get into this, I’m not a lawyer. I’m a researcher. So, none of this is biblical-place-your-hand-and-swear accurate. I’m sure we are going to get lots of commentary on this one. However, I already did all of this work, so let’s take a look at what this idea could mean for our POTUS.

Based on this description, this is likely illegal. Highly questionable to be sure, and certainly it’s going to be challenged in court. It is much more serious than Trump merely making money from owning a social-media company. It is taking the country’s president and framing him as a snake-oil salesman, or at the very least, a confidence-man. I’m not saying that he would be, just that he would look exactly like one and the rest of the country would look like people who followed a greedy, shortsighted, war-profiteer.

Truth Social is operated by Trump Media & Technology Group. Current SEC filings identify 114.75 million TMTG shares as held by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, with Trump as settlor and sole beneficiary and Donald Trump Jr. as trustee. Revenue that increases the company’s value can therefore financially benefit Trump. (SEC)

The central problem: paid insider tipping

The information would be:

• obtained through the presidency;
• unavailable to the general public for thirty minutes;
• important enough to move markets;
• deliberately provided to investors;
• sold for Trump’s private financial benefit.

That is almost a textbook material nonpublic information arrangement.

The STOCK Act expressly includes the president within its definition of an executive-branch employee. It states that no executive-branch employee may use nonpublic information derived from the office or official duties as a means of making private profit. It also establishes that the president owes a duty of trust and confidence to the United States and its citizens concerning such information for purposes of federal insider-trading law. (Congress.gov) (Congress.gov)

The thirty-minute delay is crucial. Until the message reaches the general public, its contents remain nonpublic. The fact that Trump intends to publish it later does not make it public during the paid-access window.

Trump would be the tipper

Federal securities law prohibits deceptive schemes and material misstatements or omissions connected with securities transactions. Insider-trading law also covers communicating material nonpublic information in breach of a duty when the recipient trades on it. (Legal Information Institute)

Trump would be providing the tip. The subscribers would be the tippees.

The required personal benefit would be unusually easy to demonstrate because the entire commercial offer openly says:

Pay me $100,000 each month and I will give you government-derived, market-moving information before everyone else.

This is much stronger evidence than the usual insider-trading case, where prosecutors must infer a personal benefit from friendship, gifts or indirect favors. Here, the payment is explicit.

The subscribers could also face liability

Suppose a subscriber receives advance notice that the United States will attack Iran and then trades:

• oil-company stocks;
• energy exchange-traded funds;
• airline stocks;
• defense stocks;
• options;
• securities-based swaps;
• companies heavily affected by fuel prices.

Those trades could fall directly within securities insider-trading law.

Subscribers could hardly claim ignorance about the source or nature of the information. The service is expressly marketed as an advantage created by receiving presidential announcements thirty minutes early. Their knowledge that Trump is selling official nonpublic information for personal benefit would be built into the product.

Oil futures create a related but slightly different case

A barrel of oil itself is not a security. Oil futures and commodity swaps are generally regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than the SEC.

Commodity law prohibits manipulative or deceptive schemes connected with commodity sales, futures and swaps. It also prohibits intentionally or recklessly distributing false or misleading market information. (Legal Information Institute)

If Trump merely releases truthful information early and subscribers trade only commodity futures, the legal theory is less automatic than a conventional securities-tipping case. Commodity law does not treat every possession of market-moving nonpublic information as unlawful.

But the case becomes considerably stronger if he:

• designs the timing specifically to generate trading profits;
• makes misleading or exaggerated statements;
• coordinates the announcements with subscribers’ positions;
• delays official public announcements to preserve their advantage;
• changes policy or military timing to affect prices;
• trades through his own accounts, family, company or associates.

At that point, prosecutors could characterize the operation as a manipulative or deceptive trading scheme rather than a mere news subscription.

Truthful statements do not necessarily save it

A statement need not be false for insider tipping to occur.

Imagine that the attack really is planned, the message is entirely accurate and it becomes public thirty minutes later. The problem is still that Trump has taken officially acquired, nonpublic information, created an artificial period of exclusive access and sold that advantage for personal profit.

The commodity-manipulation case would depend more heavily on deception or manipulative intent. The securities insider-trading case would not require the presidential information itself to be false.

It could also become bribery

The subscription fee alone is not automatically bribery. Federal bribery requires a corrupt exchange involving something of value and an official act or violation of official duty.

But bribery becomes plausible if wealthy subscribers are effectively purchasing more than early delivery. Examples would include:

• timing an announcement to accommodate their trades;
• delaying military or diplomatic announcements;
• changing the wording to produce a particular market response;
• taking official action after learning subscribers’ positions;
• giving subscribers information about decisions not yet finalized;
• allowing subscribers to influence what policy will be announced.

Then the payment would no longer be merely for publication. It could be payment for the manner in which presidential power is exercised.

Foreign-government subscribers would create an emoluments problem

If a foreign government, sovereign wealth fund, state-owned company or government-controlled bank purchased the subscription, the Foreign Emoluments Clause would become relevant. It prohibits federal officeholders from accepting benefits from foreign states without congressional consent. (Constitution.com)

A foreign government paying Trump $100,000 a month for privileged presidential intelligence would present a particularly severe version of the foreign-influence problem the clause was intended to prevent.

Likewise, if the federal government or a state government purchased subscriptions, that could implicate the Domestic Emoluments Clause, which prevents the president from receiving additional emoluments from the United States or individual states beyond his fixed presidential compensation. (Constitution.com)

Private American hedge funds would not ordinarily create an emoluments violation, but they could still create insider-trading, bribery and abuse-of-office problems.

The messages may belong to the United States

Posts concerning military actions, presidential decisions and official policies would likely qualify as presidential records. The Presidential Records Act covers electronic materials created in connection with the president’s constitutional, statutory or other official duties, and the United States retains ownership and control of those records.

The National Archives treated Trump’s official social-media content from his first administration — including deleted posts — as presidential records. (National Archives)

That creates an additional question: would Trump be selling advance access to a government record or government information?

Federal law prohibits unauthorized sale, conversion or disposal of a government record or thing of value. Courts have sometimes treated confidential government information itself as government property under that statute.

Application to a president who controls the timing of official communications would be legally complicated. Nevertheless, charging private investors for exclusive access makes the conduct look far more like conversion for personal gain than ordinary public communication.

Presidential immunity would complicate prosecution, not legalize the scheme

The Supreme Court has held that former presidents have immunity for core constitutional acts, presumptive immunity for other official acts and no immunity for unofficial acts. It has specifically noted that distinguishing official from unofficial presidential social-media communications can require a fact-specific inquiry. (Constitution.com)

This scheme deliberately mixes the two:

• deciding military or diplomatic policy is official;
• communicating official policy may be official;
• operating a private paid investment-information service is private commercial conduct;
• collecting subscription revenue is private conduct.

The private sale would likely be classified as unofficial even though the product being sold came from official activity. Prosecutors might encounter restrictions on using evidence involving protected official acts, but immunity would not transform the private subscription business into lawful presidential conduct.

Current Justice Department policy also maintains that a sitting president should not be indicted or criminally prosecuted while in office. That is an executive-branch policy, not a declaration that the conduct is lawful. Investigation, congressional oversight, impeachment and possible prosecution after leaving office remain separate questions. (Department of Justice)

This would be an exceptionally strong impeachment case

Even where prosecutors encountered technical obstacles, the constitutional impeachment question would be much clearer.

Impeachment reaches abuse of governmental power and conduct that damages or subverts the state; it is not restricted to offenses that can immediately be prosecuted in criminal court. (Constitution.com)

The basic charge would be:

The president deliberately withheld official, market-moving information from the American public and sold temporary access to wealthy investors for his own enrichment.

That combines:

• abuse of presidential information;
• private monetization of military and foreign policy;
• unequal access to government knowledge;
• probable market corruption;
• potential national-security exposure;
• personal enrichment through official power.

The clean dividing line

Trump could probably legally sell a premium newsletter containing:

• personal political commentary;
• opinions;
• predictions;
• analysis based entirely on public information;
• ordinary entertainment or social-media features.

He could not safely sell:

• advance notice of military operations;
• pending tariff decisions;
• unpublished sanctions;
• planned regulatory actions;
• upcoming government contracts;
• diplomatic agreements;
• market-moving presidential orders;
• other information learned or created through performing his official duties.

So, under this scenario, this is not simply “profiting from owning Truth Social.” It is the commercial sale of an insider advantage derived directly from the presidential office. The strongest legal characterization would be paid tipping of material nonpublic government information, with possible securities fraud, commodities manipulation, bribery, emoluments, government-record and impeachment consequences.