Whatever Natalie Harp’s job is, it just landed her in the caption of a lawsuit along with the boss she adores. Congrats, Natalie!
Yes, Harp, along with President Donald Trump, recently got sued for Trump’s little pay-to-play dealio over at Truth Social.
It must be such a thrill to see your name up there on all the federal filings, right? It’s sort of Baby’s First Corruption Milestone to be listed right along with the world’s most doddering fascist.
This little Trump family scam—and really, isn’t Natalie just part of the family now?—is the one where traders and investors got the privilege of paying up to $100,000 per month to get early access to Trump’s Truth Social posts.
Of course, the idea that you can bribe the president’s private social media company for early access to the president’s official statements that are designed to goose the stock market to put money in the pockets of the president and his cronies is an unholy combination of official corruption and insider trading. However, that’s just our brave, bold new world of high finance these days. No one around Trump is going to tell him no, in his personal or presidential capacity, and any meaningful regulatory guardrails are long, long gone.
Which is where the lawsuits—and Natalie—come in.
Last Thursday, American Oversight and the Campaign for Accountability sued Harp, Trump, and a whole grip of administration officials in the Washington, D.C. federal district court. The complaint really highlights just how brazen the Truth Social scheme is, like the CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group saying they were going to create “a lot of friction” for people who won’t pay to play and that the company sold the idea to investors specifically as “Markets already move on Truth Social Posts.”
Well, sure they do, because, as the complaint also notes, the administration has explicitly said that Trump’s Truthies are official government statements. The pitch is quite literally that if you give the president money, you can learn a little bit quicker than the plebes what the government is going to do, and bet accordingly. You don’t have to get caught in the backlash of Trump’s market move, but can instead just ride the wave.
Related | Want to see Trump’s Truth Social posts first? Pony up.
Why is Harp in the mix? Because she’s Trump’s little truther, posting all his little Truths daily, including, presumably, all those market-moving ones.
That’s not the only lawsuit this little scam is facing. Earlier this week, San Francisco’s city attorney sued Trump Media, saying that the arrangement violates California’s Unfair Competition Law. You can see how this is sort of a slam dunk: those who pay get to play early, and normie investors who don’t have $100,000 a month get left in the dust.
You can expect Trump to howl about Harp being included in the American Oversight lawsuit, and you can expect conservatives to rage about Harp being included in the AO lawsuit. But hey, if you wanna run with the big corrupt boys, you get your name in the big corruption lawsuit. Enjoy!