Two Democratic senators are demanding answers from the White House over serious concerns that President Donald Trump’s rollbacks on his tariffs and his social media posts earlier Wednesday may have been part of insider trading among White House allies.
Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., sent a letter to Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Thursday asking for an investigation into potential conflicts of interest over the actions that took place Wednesday.
Hours before Trump announced he was rolling back tariffs to 10% to all countries except China, which sent the stock market soaring, he posted on Truth Social: “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” and “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego speaks at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing for at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 17, 2025.
Ben Curtis/AP
“This sequence of events raises grave legal and ethics concerns. The President, his family, and his advisors are uniquely positioned to be privy to and take advantage of non-public information to inform their investment decisions,” the senators said in their letter.
Stocks were down Wednesday morning before Trump’s Truth Social post immediately caused markets to spike. Nasdaq soared 12.1% at close, the index’s largest single-day gain since 2021, while the Dow jumped 7.8%, its biggest one-day increase in five years.
The White House has not immediately commented.
The senators asked the Office of Government Ethics to probe whether any White House or executive branch officials, to include special government employees, were informed of the announcement in advance and what financial transactions were made by officials with knowledge of nonpublic information.
Senator Adam Schiff attends a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., April 7, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
The senators also said they wanted answers to several questions about Wednesday’s chain of events, including whether any Trump’s family members were informed of the deliberations prior to Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the tariff changes and if there were any records of communications with executive branch officials, family members or special government employees.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that the president’s decision was part of his plan and that 75 countries had called to negotiate with the president. They did not provide further details.
President Donald Trump speaks, as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, April 9, 2025.
Chris Kleponis/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Hours later, however, Trump told reporters he made his decision Wednesday morning.
“I think it probably came together early this morning, fairly early this morning. Just wrote it up. I didn’t — we didn’t have the use of, we didn’t have access to lawyers, or it was just brought up. We wrote it up from our hearts,” he said.
Michael Guttentag, a Loyola Law School professor who has written several research papers on insider trading, told ABC News there is no universal national insider trading law. Rather, cases have been prosecuted, generally, through court decisions that have set precedents.
“Generally, the other issue is the standard test for insider trading is, ‘Did you have material nonpublic information?,'” he told ABC News.
However, in 2012, Congress passed the Stock Act of 2012, which made it illegal for Congress members and anyone part of the executive branch to take part in insider trading.
Guttentag said it would not be hard to determine if insider trading took place within the White House as one would just need to start by pulling up the trading records, match them with individuals linked to the executive office and the time Trump’s announcement was made.
President Donald Trump holds a Cabinet meeting at the White House, April 10, 2025 in Washington.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
He noted former U.S. Rep. Chris Collins was prosecuted on insider trading in 2018 after the Office of Congressional Ethics determined he used his congressional connections to inform his son to sell stocks of a pharmaceutical company that was about to get information on a drug trial. Investigators were able to determine Collins made the call to his son while at a picnic at the White House almost immediately after he received the e-mail about the failed drug trial.
He ultimately resigned from his seat and pleaded guilty to insider trading in 2019 but was pardoned by Trump in December 2020.
Guttentag said the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission would be in charge of investigating the civil and criminal allegations of potential violations of the 2012 Stock Act.
While Trump and other officials declined to talk more about Schiff and Gallego’s request, some other Democratic senators at the Capitol on Thursday also questioned the timing of the announcement and the rise in stocks.
“Look, it shouldn’t be an investigation by Democrats or Republicans, it should be an independent investigation. And if the president and his cabinet and his family have nothing to hide, they should want an investigation like that. Let’s just clear up the smoke here,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told reporters.
“Over and over again we see evidence of self-dealing and efforts to improve your bottom-line net worth with the policies of this administration,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said. “I think it deserves closer scrutiny.”
A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, April 9, 2025.
Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters
But some Republicans dismissed the concern.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called the assertion of insider trading “ridiculous” and said Democrats were just looking to “take a dig” at Trump.
“It’s pretty obvious that when the stock market is in a dip that maybe if you have some money, you might consider investing and make some money when it picks back up again. I think any idea of insider trading is ridiculous,” Cornyn told reporters.
Guttentag noted investigating possible insider trading within the executive branch and prosecuting them if there any solid evidence is a long hill to climb. However, he said it is imperative that ethics rules are followed.
“People tend to find insider trading reprehensible. If [investigators] could share evidence that people were trading in this window, it would be important in establishing transparency and keeping the rule of law,” he said.
