We’re Challenging Trump’s Pay-to-Play Scheme

Truth Social is selling subscribers early access to certain Trump administration posts. The cost is steep: Subscriptions are as much as $100,000 a month, and the money will line Trump’s pockets. We filed suit over the scheme, with Campaign for Accountability, to put a stop to this textbook corruption.

Our lawsuit argues “Truth API” violates the Constitution and laws that protect public access to information by forcing watchdogs, journalists, and the public to wait in line behind paying subscribers before they can get information about what the government is doing.

President Trump and members of his administration have routinely used Truth Social to announce major government decisions. And while Trump’s trust is the largest shareholder of Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, other administration officials also have their own financial ties to the company. FBI Director Kash Patel, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino all have stakes in it.

“Like so much of his agenda, this scheme is built to benefit the wealthy and well-connected while the rest of us are pushed to the back of the line,” our Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said. “Official government announcements should be released to everyone at the same time, not sold to those who can afford to buy an advantage.”

Lawsuit filed to investigate USPS mail-in ballot portal

Last week, we sued the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to investigate the agency’s rushed attempt to roll out a new online portal to screen mail-in ballots ahead of the November midterm elections. A whistleblower warned that the portal could be used to delay or block ballots from the millions of Americans who vote by mail.

The records we’re seeking could show whether USPS complied with court orders while building the portal and reveal whether the USPS officials who pushed the portal forward are involved in other Trump administration efforts to limit ballot access.

Our lawsuit, which is part of our larger investigation into the full scope of the administration’s efforts to influence elections, follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to block USPS’s use of the portal for this year’s midterms. Last week, a top USPS official said the agency has stopped work on the portal following the Supreme Court’s order. However, the Supreme Court’s order left the door open for USPS to revive it in future elections.

“The public deserves to know who approved this, how far USPS was prepared to go, and what else may be underway. That’s why we’re going to court,” our Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said.

Is the Trump admin illegally accessing state voter data for immigration enforcement?

A recent whistleblower report alleges that Trump’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is illegally accessing state voter data as part of its “Unlawful Voter Initiative” — and that it may have already violated state law thousands of times. We sent FOIA requests to USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate.

Our executive director, Chioma Chukwu, put the problem succinctly: “The whistleblower’s allegations raise serious concerns that USCIS instructed officers to break the law in order to manufacture a voter fraud crisis using data its own officials call unreliable.” 

The whistleblower disclosure — made public by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Alex Padilla on September 14 — claims that USCIS directed officers in its Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate to misrepresent themselves as voters on state election agency websites in order to search individuals’ registration and voting records. That conduct could violate laws in several states that criminalize accessing another voter’s record without authorization.

The same whistleblower alleged that officers had to review dozens of people per day, spending only a few minutes on each to resolve complex questions of citizenship, identity, and voting history. Officers were also reportedly told that some of the data feeding the initiative had been compiled through “supplemental magic.” These evaluations — which were based on data that may have been both illegally gathered and unreliable — were then used to determine whether or not someone was considered an “unlawful voter.”

We requested emails sent by senior DHS and USCIS officials, as well as training materials distributed about the initiative, records reflecting the review quotas assigned, communications with state election offices in 20 states, and records to identify the data used in the initiative.

“If federal agents were directed to misrepresent themselves to access state voter records and meet a daily quota for flagging Americans — including naturalized citizens — for potential investigation, it could threaten the ability of eligible voters to exercise their rights, just weeks before voters go to the polls,” said Chukwu.

On the records

We exposed a fatal shooting by ICE, his mother testified this week in Congress

Earlier this year, we uncovered the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed Ruben Ray Martinez through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. ICE covered up the shooting for nearly a year before we uncovered related records, including video footage that appeared to contradict ICE’s claims about Martinez’s actions before and during the March 2025 shooting.

On Tuesday, family members and loved ones of people who have been shot and killed by ICE told members of Congress that the Trump administration’s misinformation about the shootings amounted to “dual assassinations” of the victims’ bodies and characters. The mother of Ruben Ray Martinez along with family members and witnesses testified about the shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of Texas, Renée Good and Alex Pretti of Minnesota, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero of Maine.

Earlier this week, an ICE officer shot a man who was working as a DoorDash driver in Austin, Texas. The shooting reignited protests over the Trump administration’s immigration agenda as the total number of people shot by immigration officers in Trump’s second term increased to at least 21.

This is part of a broader pattern. We’re pushing to hold ICE accountable.

What we know about how the administration is implementing NSPM-7 

Last year, the Trump administration issued a memo directing federal law enforcement to treat ideas like “anti-capitalism” and “extremism on race and gender” as signs of domestic terrorism. Experts have warned the memo, National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), is designed to target groups who oppose Trump. 

We obtained documents, reported on by Talking Points Memo, that reveal more details of how the administration is implementing NSPM-7. The records show that at least 13 employees from the Internal Revenue Service and two from the Justice Department were assigned to the FBI’s NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center.

American Oversight in the news

• Fears grow that Trump could use military to influence the upcoming election (NPR)
• Trump and Natalie Harp sued over Truth Social insider trading scheme (The New Republic)
• Whistleblower exposes FOIA sabotage at immigration agency (Freedom of the Press Foundation)
• Records show Kansas election officials refused call to police gender markers on voter files (Kansas Reflector)
• A voice from the frontlines on Trump’s attacks on nonprofits (Inside Philanthropy)

Other stories we’re following

• ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders (Associated Press)
• CNN, Politico, MS NOW journalists barred from White House after judge blocks Trump’s ban (Washington Post)
• Families of ICE victims tell panel that falsehoods, obstruction amount to ‘dual assassinations’ (News From the States)
• Civil rights groups sue to keep armed agents away from voting sites (New York Times)
• Blanche warned of contempt risk in Epstein files case (Axios)