Inside insider-trading White House

Imagine this scenario. The US President Donald Trump is a minute away from making a war-shattering announcement. He is about to disclose a five-day hiatus in the ongoing attacks on Iran. A minute before he goes public, within a minute, some traders place bets worth $500 million on the downward price movement in global crude oil futures. Within a few hours or so, oil slumped by 15 per cent, according to a media report, and the slick traders earned “enormous profits.” It was an easy killing. This happened on March 23, 2026. Clearly, confidential information was leaked from the White House.

Another media report gives a more dramatic version of what happened on that day. Before Trump posted on Truth Social about a pause in the attacks on Iran’s power plants, “Futures for oil and stocks worth billions of dollars changed hands just 15 minutes before Trump’s post sent crude prices tumbling, and equities soaring. Contracts corresponding to at least 6 million barrels… were sold in the two minutes before 6.49 am in New York on March 23…. The average for the same time-period over the previous five trading days was about 700 lots, or 7,00,000 barrels. Trump’s Truth Social post was published at around 7.05 am that day.”

An angry White House reacted violently. “White House spokesperson… addressed the issue directly, stating that while Trump remains committed to fostering a strong and prosperous stock market for all Americans, government officials and members of Congress must be strictly prohibited from using non-public information for personal financial gain. The staff-wide email, reportedly distributed by the White House management office, reinforces existing legal and ethical boundaries surrounding the use of privileged information in financial markets,” stated the report. This led to a bipartisan pressure to ensure accountability and transparency at the highest levels.

Ironic as it may seem, the White House and Congress insiders are possibly doing exactly what Trump, his family members, friends, and loyalists have done for over a year, and during the president’s first term. They turned diplomatic discussions, and negotiations, especially in the Middle East, into personal profit fiefdoms. The president openly accepted expensive gifts, even as his family inked lucrative contracts. The penchant to make money from inside information presumably stems from the top. A call for transparency in such an environment sounds a bit shallow and hollow. If the master is grey, can the minions be expected to stay ‘white’ in a tainted White House?

Earlier this year, just before the US forces captured the Venezuelan president, and his wife, and shipped him to the US, profitable bets were allegedly placed. “A series of well-timed wagers placed on Polymarket by freshly created anonymous accounts have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits so far, prompting analysts to scour the trade for telltale signs of insider activity. Some payouts on Middle East-related bets are now frozen in dispute, with traders unable to collect as users debate what constitutes a ceasefire,” states a media report.

Not too long ago, a few months ago, India’s power regulator alleged similar practices among the employees of the Indian Energy Exchange. This was after Sebi pinpointed a few wrongdoings. The market regulator ordered a few entities to surrender more than INR 170 crore, which was earned illegally. When the power regulator decided to implement a few changes that would adversely impact trading on the energy exchange, the latter’s shares plummeted by nearly 30 per cent in a single day. However, there was an unusual spike in trading volumes before the announcement, which raised suspicions of insider trading.

Evidence suggested that like in the case of the White House events, the traders received information from high-ranking officials within the energy regulator, and acted on them. Thus, the so-called profits were impounded, bank accounts related to the amounts were frozen, and several entities restrained from dealing in securities. Later, like in the case of White House, there was a debate on how to restrain officials, and educate them on what was wrong, and what was right. In fact, it was a classic case of insiders using inside information. Profits were lucrative, and not easy to be ignored, and trades simple to execute.

Last month, Sebi highlighted the energy exchange case, along with the others that involved the executives at IndusInd Bank, and Bank of America, as also those in two leading global consulting firms. “The insiders may lie not only in companies, (but) they may also lie in the people who have gotten information in a fiduciary capacity. It may also lie with regulators because they are also doing regulation. So, we really have to see that everyone is adequately sensitised to this issue” Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Sebi chairperson, said in a media interview.

Similarly, the issue about official insiders, within the government, and within the White House has gained traction in America. Two days after the White House email on insider bets related to the Iran war, three senators introduced the ‘Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act.’ The aim is to ban government officials at all levels from “using non-material public information of any kind on any event contract.” One of the senators who moved the bill said, “Public service should never be a pathway to personal profit based on insider information.” It is a sensible step to promote official integrity.

Another senator explained, “As financial markets evolve, so too must our ethics laws. By extending long-standing insider trading principles to prediction markets, this bill closes a dangerous loophole, and reinforces a basic expectation: Those entrusted with sensitive information cannot make a bet on the future for personal profit.” The prediction market cannot be left to self-regulation, or self-policing. Laws need to be in place to stop elected officials from playing the prediction markets, or rather the futures market, as was the case with oil. The so-called bipartisan bill covers the president, vice president, members of Congress, employees of the Congress and Senate, political appointees, and employees of executive and regulatory agencies.

Other Congresspersons have chipped in. “But while insider trading is illegal for the rest of the country, there is no enforceable ban on Congress and other top officials from using their insider knowledge to cash in. So-called ‘prediction markets’ like Polymarket and Kalshi allow individuals to bet on timing and details of world events…. Banning members of Congress from trading stocks is an incredibly popular, bipartisan policy, with a 2025 study showing that more than 86 per cent of the voting public support such a ban,” said one of them.