The person behind the popular satirical Instagram account @CatsOnACouch has filed a lawsuit against JD Vance and the US Secret Service, claiming she was prevented from attending the vice-president’s visit to Bangor in May.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the US district court in Maine by the ACLU of Maine on behalf of Amanda McGonigle, according to a press release. The complaint alleges that McGonigle’s first amendment rights were violated because she was denied access to the public event due to her online criticism of Vance.
In May, McGonigle signed up to attend an event in Bangor, Maine, where Vance was scheduled to discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to fight healthcare fraud. Keith Sonderling, the acting labor secretary, also attended the event.
Court documents state that after registering and waiting in line outside the Bangor airport, McGonigle was identified by name by armed Secret Service officers, denied entry to the event, and told: “We know where you stand.”
“It’s absurd that the Secret Service is wasting their time tracking a satirical cat account on social media,” said McGonigle in a statement. “The government can’t exclude me from official vice-presidential events just because I mock people in power on the internet.”
She continued: “The Trump administration has routinely retaliated against people exercising their first amendment rights, and this is just the latest example. But the first amendment protects our right to criticize the government, and it’s well within my rights to say that I think JD Vance is an unlikeable idiot.”
According to the complaint, the incident in Bangor was not the first time that McGonigle was excluded from an official vice-presidential event. Documents say McGonigle previously registered to attend another official event in Des Moines, Iowa, in early May, but event organizers failed to send her a confirmation email despite sending such emails with attendance information to other registrants.
Laura Moraff, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said “Ms McGonigle’s satirical social media content is purr-tected speech.”
McGonigle, who lives in Massachusetts, launched the @CatsOnACouch account in 2024 after Vance referred to prominent Democrats as “childless cat ladies”. She said the account’s goal is to “have more followers than JD Vance by the time he leaves office and to troll him mercilessly every single day”. The account currently sits just under two million followers.
The ACLU and McGonigle argue that preventing her from attending the event amounted to retaliation over her political views and criticism expressed online, violating her first amendment right to free speech.
“Ms McGonigle uses her platform to criticize and satirize elected officials, using humor to garner support for causes important to her and inform her followers about political developments,” said Anahita Sotoohi, an ACLU of Maine staff attorney. “The first amendment cannot be revoked just because one of the country’s most powerful people can’t take a joke.”
