Judge weighs if Trump can charge $100K for early access to Truth Social posts

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Likely in the next few weeks, a federal judge will decide if Donald Trump can become the first president to personally profit from selling early access to government information in his social media posts. At a hearing Wednesday, Department of Justice civil attorney Brantley Mayers argued that there was no conflict whatsoever with Trump charging up to $100,000 monthly for instant API access to Truth Social posts that often break news from his administration.

一位联邦法官很可能在未来几周内做出裁决，决定唐纳德·特朗普是否能成为首位通过出售其社交媒体帖文中政府信息的优先访问权而个人获利的总统。在周三的听证会上，司法部民事律师布兰特利·梅耶斯（Brantley Mayers）辩称，特朗普每月收取高达10万美元的费用，以提供对其Truth Social帖文的即时API访问权限，这并不存在任何利益冲突，尽管这些帖文经常发布来自其政府的突发新闻。

Trump is the largest stakeholder and majority owner of Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company that owns Truth Social, and the value of the API access comes largely from Trump’s role as president. News groups suing have argued that Trump’s exorbitant API fees violate the First Amendment and the Presidential Records Act by creating tiers of access to government information in social media posts that Trump doesn’t technically own.

特朗普是Truth Social母公司——特朗普媒体与技术集团（TMTG）的最大股东和控股所有者，而该API访问权限的价值很大程度上源于特朗普的总统身份。起诉的新闻机构认为，特朗普高昂的API费用违反了《第一修正案》和《总统记录法》，因为这为政府信息访问设置了等级，而这些信息在技术上并不属于特朗普个人所有。

Additionally, Trump’s exorbitant API fees undermine the Fifth Amendment. That prohibits the government from “charging unreasonable sums that cannot be justified to offset the cost of the government benefit, and granting preferential access to crucial government information for arbitrary and irrational reasons,” news groups argued. However, Mayers likened Trump’s Truth Social posts—which have announced military strikes, ceasefires, tariffs, immigration policies, and major changes in his administration—to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s evening radio addresses known as “fireside chats,” Courthouse News reported.

此外，新闻机构辩称，特朗普高昂的API费用损害了《第五修正案》。该修正案禁止政府“收取无法证明是为了抵消政府利益成本的不合理费用，并出于武断和非理性的原因授予对关键政府信息的优先访问权”。然而，据《法院新闻》（Courthouse News）报道，梅耶斯将特朗普的Truth Social帖文——这些帖文曾宣布军事打击、停火、关税、移民政策及其政府的重大变动——比作富兰克林·D·罗斯福被称为“炉边谈话”的晚间广播讲话。

His personal feed acts as an unvarnished public service, not a greedy profit grab, the DOJ argued. It’s clear, though, that Trump could potentially make $1.2 million per subscriber annually by selling government information that is not Trump’s property. Before Mayers could proceed, US District Judge Paul Oetken “cut him off,” Courthouse News reported. “Well, President Roosevelt didn’t charge money for his fireside chats, did he?” Oetken asked.

司法部辩称，他的个人动态是一种纯粹的公共服务，而非贪婪的牟利手段。然而显而易见的是，特朗普通过出售不属于其个人的政府信息，每位订阅者每年可能获利120万美元。据《法院新闻》报道，在梅耶斯继续陈述前，美国地方法官保罗·奥特肯（Paul Oetken）“打断了他”。奥特肯问道：“那么，罗斯福总统并没有为他的‘炉边谈话’收费，对吧？”

Responding, Mayers suggested that although Roosevelt didn’t charge for his broadcasts, there were similar “barriers to entry” keeping every American from tuning in. Just as some news groups today can’t afford to pay $60,000 to $100,000 for Truth’s API, some Americans in the ‘30s and ‘40s couldn’t afford radios, he argued. Nikhel Sus, chief counsel for a group representing news plaintiffs called the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told Ars that the judge was right to push back on the DOJ’s comparison.

梅耶斯回应称，尽管罗斯福没有为广播收费，但当时也存在类似的“准入门槛”，阻碍了所有美国人收听。他辩称，正如今天一些新闻机构负担不起6万至10万美元的Truth API费用一样，三四十年代的一些美国人也买不起收音机。代表新闻原告方“华盛顿公民责任与道德组织”（CREW）的首席律师尼克尔·苏斯（Nikhel Sus）告诉Ars，法官反驳司法部的这种类比是正确的。

During the hearing, the judge acknowledged that the Truth API could be discriminatory by creating “two classes of people,” Courthouse News reported. Sue said that he also clearly recognized the “symbiotic relationship” between Trump and Truth Social. Criticizing the comparison to FDR’s fireside chats, Sus told Ars that the DOJ “can throw out these hypotheticals that have absolutely nothing to do with this situation until the cows come home, but they’re not persuasive.”

据《法院新闻》报道，在听证会上，法官承认Truth API可能会通过制造“两个阶层的人”而产生歧视。苏斯表示，法官也清楚地认识到了特朗普与Truth Social之间的“共生关系”。在批评将此事与罗斯福的“炉边谈话”进行比较时，苏斯告诉Ars，司法部“可以没完没了地抛出这些与当前情况毫无关系的假设，但它们并不具有说服力。”

Judge asks if a second of delay is “negligible” At the hearing, Oetken asked “tough questions” of both sides, Sus told Ars. No elected official has ever owned a media company where they can profit off presidential announcements, and the judge took time to remark that “there hasn’t really been anything like this case.” Talking to Ars, Sus argued that the lack of precedent should trigger alarm bells, not excuse the conduct, as the DOJ has suggested.

法官询问一秒钟的延迟是否“微不足道”。苏斯告诉Ars，在听证会上，奥特肯向双方提出了“尖锐的问题”。没有任何民选官员曾拥有一家可以通过总统公告获利的媒体公司，法官特意指出“此前确实没有过类似的案件”。在与Ars交谈时，苏斯认为，缺乏先例应该敲响警钟，而不是像司法部所暗示的那样为这种行为开脱。

“Just because no prior president had the gall to try to do something so flagrantly corrupt and illegal doesn’t mean that it is legal,” he said. Initially, Oetken approached claims that the API scheme violated the First Amendment with skepticism, Courthouse News reported. At one point, he wondered if Trump delaying the general public’s access to information by potentially as little as a fraction of a second would meaningfully harm the free press.

他说：“仅仅因为此前没有总统有胆量尝试做如此公然腐败和非法的事情，并不意味着它是合法的。”据《法院新闻》报道，起初，奥特肯对API计划违反《第一修正案》的指控持怀疑态度。他一度质疑，特朗普将公众获取信息的时间延迟哪怕仅仅几分之一秒，是否真的会损害新闻自由。

Although it’s easy to see how an algorithmic trader would benefit from getting information just a little bit sooner, “It’s a negligible delay to a human being,” Oetken suggested. But the conflict isn’t only about timing, nonprofit news organizations have argued. TMTG has confirmed that large news groups are already in talks to buy API access because there is immense value in the service that goes beyond getting instant access to Truth Social posts.

虽然很容易看出算法交易员如何能从更早获取信息中获益，但奥特肯认为，“对于人类来说，这只是微不足道的延迟。”然而，非营利新闻机构辩称，冲突不仅仅在于时间。TMTG已证实，大型新闻集团已经在商谈购买API访问权限，因为该服务除了能即时获取Truth Social帖文外，还具有巨大的价值。

For example, the API “provides a machine-readable feed and a historic archive of all of President Trump’s Truth Social posts,” Sus told Ars. With that access, even if Trump deletes posts—which he frequently does—any news group can maintain a more reliable log of all posts. “It is absolutely worth something,” Sus told Ars. “And it’s not just the algorithmic traders. News outlets use APIs too.”

例如，苏斯告诉Ars，该API“提供了一个机器可读的订阅源以及特朗普总统所有Truth Social帖文的历史存档”。有了这种访问权限，即使特朗普删除了帖文（他经常这样做），任何新闻机构都能维护一份更可靠的帖文记录。苏斯告诉Ars：“这绝对是有价值的。而且不仅仅是算法交易员，新闻媒体也在使用API。”

The judge sees the case as complex and did not rule from the bench, instead promising a written ruling on whether to enjoin Trump from selling API access while he’s in office at a later date. Sus told Ars that courts typically treat requests for preliminary injunctions urgently and that he expects a decision in the next few weeks. Until then, news groups remain optimistic that the court’s ruling will swing their way, Sus said.

法官认为此案复杂，并未当庭宣判，而是承诺将在晚些时候就“是否禁止特朗普在任职期间出售API访问权限”发布书面裁决。苏斯告诉Ars，法院通常会紧急处理初步禁令请求，他预计未来几周内会有裁决。苏斯表示，在此之前，新闻机构对法院的裁决将倾向于他们持乐观态度。

“All we’re asking for is that when the president chooses to make government information available to the public, he has to do so on equal terms,” Sus said. “He cannot discriminate based on who’s willing to pay the president’s personal company hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is obscenely corrupt and unconstitutional.”

“我们所要求的只是，当总统选择向公众发布政府信息时，他必须在平等的条件下进行，”苏斯说。“他不能根据谁愿意向总统的个人公司支付数十万美元来搞歧视。这是极其腐败且违宪的。”

API gives news orgs a “direct advantage” Defending Trump’s scheme, Mayers asked the judge to look at Trump’s interests as wholly separate from the media group that bears his name. He claimed Trump had nothing to do with the decision to charge for API access to his posts, branding them as a “completely private commercial decision” made exclusively by TMTG. Nonprofit news group

API赋予新闻机构“直接优势”。在为特朗普的计划辩护时，梅耶斯要求法官将特朗普的利益视为与以他名字命名的媒体集团完全分开。他声称特朗普与对其帖文的API访问收费决定毫无关系，并将其定性为完全由TMTG做出的“纯粹的私人商业决策”。非营利新闻组织