Trump Threatens Tech Platform With Legal Action for Creating Account Under His Name

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Former President Donald Trump‘s legal team is threatening social-media platform with legal action for implying he had endorsed it in order to lure users into paying a $4.99 weekly subscription fee.

“It has come to our attention that the 2nd1st mobile app [is] unlawfully utilizing the name, image, and/or likeness of President Donald J. Trump for commercial purposes,” Nathan Groth wrote in a cease-and-desist letter from the Trump team. The letter was dated Sept. 30 but first made public by The New York Post on Tuesday evening,

“The infringements of President Donald J. Trump’s rights likely constitute unfair competition under the Lanham Act and misappropriation of name, image, and/or likeness for commercial purposes, and misrepresentation under state laws,” Groth added.

The letter was addressed to the app’s parent company, Howly. Public records indicate the company was registered in Kansas to a proprietor named Shyam Sawant, but public records contain scant evidence to pointing to Sawant’s identity or whereabouts.

The lawsuit is the most recent in a string of actions Trump has taken against social media companies. He filed suit against Twitter, Facebook, and Google in July for allegedly censoring conservative users. And earlier this month, he continued his quest to return to Twitter, which banned him in January, asking a federal court in Miami to issue a preliminary injunction against Twitter allowing him to return to the platform.