White House Reportedly Warns Staff Against Insider Trading As Lawmakers Raise Concerns
· Time
The White House reportedly sent a staff-wide email warning against placing trades and bets using confidential information.
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News of the warning, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about possible insider trading, pointing to a number of profitable trades and bets placed shortly before President Donald Trump announced decisions related to the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran.
The email was reportedly sent by the White House Management Office on March 24, a day after Trump paused military strikes on Iran’s civilian infrastructure, citing “productive conversations” with Tehran. Trump’s post on Truth Social after 7 a.m. on March 23 was preceded by a flurry of trading in futures markets.
According to Bloomberg, contracts covering at least six million barrels of Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, were sold within two minutes starting at 6:49 a.m. in New York on the day of Trump’s post. The activity was significantly higher than the average of 700,000 barrels sold during the same time period over the previous five trading days, according to Bloomberg.
The email also reportedly addresses betting on prediction markets, where people trade contracts based on the outcome of future events. Major platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi have seen surging trading volumes in recent years, especially around high-interest events like the 2024 presidential election and Trump’s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January. The industry is relatively new compared to traditional financial markets.
On March 23, Sens. Adam Schiff (D, Calif.) and John Curtis (R, Utah) introduced legislation that would ban prediction markets from listing contracts that resemble sports bets or casino-style games. Shortly after, Kalshi and Polymarket said they would introduce new guardrails to prevent insider trading. Kalshi, which is federally regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said it would ban political candidates from trading related to their own campaigns and people involved in college or professional sports from trading connected to the sports they are involved in.
Polymarket said it would explicitly bar users from trading on contracts which they may have inside knowledge on or ability to sway the outcome of. Polymarket was barred from serving U.S. customers in 2022, although it reentered the U.S. with a limited rollout in late 2025 following its acquisition of a CFTC-licensed exchange. Polymarket also runs a global, crypto-based platform that accounts for the bulk of activity and is not CFTC-regulated.
On April 7, at least 50 newly created Polymarket accounts placed substantial bets that the U.S. and Iran would agree to a cease-fire shortly before Trump announced the deal on Truth Social at around 6:30 p.m. E.T. The bets, which generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit, were made as Trump had continued to escalate threats against Iran, warning that “a whole civilization will die.” Iran had also not yet indicated any plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for global energy trade that has been militarized by Iran since the start of the war.
“President Trump has been crystal clear: while he seeks a strong and profitable stock market for everyone, members of Congress and other government officials should be prohibited from using nonpublic information for financial benefit,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement to media outlets. “The only special interest that will ever guide President Trump is the best interest of the American people.”
“All federal employees are subject to government ethics guidelines that prohibit the use of nonpublic information for financial benefit. However, any implication that Administration officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting,” Ingle added.
There has not been evidence of leaks or that White House employees have profited from insider trading.
Nevertheless, some lawmakers have voiced concerns about unusual trading activity. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D, Conn.) sent a letter to Polymarket on Thursday asking the company to explain its failure to regulate trades related to U.S. national security matters. Blumenthal cited the April 7 trades.
“These repeated, illicit bets raise significant concerns about the mishandling of confidential information on Polymarket, and calls into question whether it is taking adequate steps to prevent, deter, and report national security leaks and gambling over matters of life-and-death,” Blumenthal wrote.
Last month, Blumenthal introduced legislation alongside Sen. Andy Kim (D, N.J.) seeking to regulate prediction markets, including banning listings related to war, death, and military action.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers also introduced the “Preventing Real-time Exploitation and Deceptive Insider Congressional Trading Act” in the House on March 25, which would ban members of Congress, the President, and executive branch officials and their families from trading on prediction markets tied to political events.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D, N.Y.) sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC asking the commissions to investigate trading that happened in the minutes before Trump’s March 23 announcement. The lawmaker told Bloomberg that the “sheer speed, scale and structure of the trade” appeared suspicious.
“What kind of trader would make a massive trade at 6:49 a.m., 15 minutes before a market-moving presidential announcement with billions of dollars at stake and without a hedge?” Torres posted on X on Wednesday. “The only plausible answer to that question is an insider trader. Any other alternative is a statistical impossibility.”
TIME has reached out to the White House, SEC, CFTC, Polymarket, and Kalshi for comment.