Mysterious trading patterns follow Trump into war
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An epidemic of suspicious trading has emerged around President Trump's most consequential decisions — each time, just minutes or hours before he rattles global markets, according to exchange data.
Why it matters: As the Iran war sends prices soaring for ordinary Americans, a select few appear to be profiting in plain sight. It's precisely the kind of alleged corruption Trump built his political career railing against.
- Democrats, favored to win the House in November, already are laying the groundwork for investigations into whether insiders are trading on Trump's market-moving decisions.
Zoom in: The pattern has become impossible to ignore, spanning both traditional financial markets and fast-growing prediction platforms.
- On Monday, $580 million in oil futures flooded the market in a sudden spike — with no public news to explain it — roughly 16 minutes before Trump announced a pause in strikes on Iranian power plants.
- On the Friday before the war began, an unusual surge of more than 150 Polymarket accounts placed hundreds of bets predicting a U.S. strike on Iran by the next day, according to a New York Times analysis.
- On Jan. 2, a trader turned roughly $32,000 into more than $400,000 by betting on the capture of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro before it was announced the next morning.
- Last April, a surge of bullish stock trades appeared minutes before Trump announced a dramatic 90-day pause on the "Liberation Day" tariffs that were roiling the market.
Reality check: Because these accounts are anonymous, it's unclear whether they involve insiders with advance knowledge, coordinated traders or independent speculators.
- "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," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
The big picture: There's no evidence that Trump knew about the suspicious trades or that any officials were involved. More broadly, his presidency has coincided with business and investment activity involving allies, donors and family members, some of which has been historically lucrative.
- The Trump family's crypto venture has generated billions — with investors including a Chinese crypto mogul who later settled his SEC fraud case, and an Emirati royal lobbying Washington for AI chips.
- Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Jr., have invested in drone companies competing for Pentagon contracts. Jared Kushner — Trump's son-in-law and one of his Iran envoys — is seeking to raise billions for his private equity fund from Persian Gulf governments entangled in the war.
- Over two terms, Trump has granted clemency to more than 70 donors, allies and other people convicted of fraud — including one pardoned after his family donated $3.5 million to a Trump super PAC.
What they're saying: "The president has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities. President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner and to suggest otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious," White House counsel David Warrington told Axios.
- "Any contributions an individual makes does not impact the president's pardon decisions. Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money," a White House official said.
Between the lines: The Trump administration has systematically dismantled much of the machinery designed to catch insider trading and white-collar fraud.
- The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section — created after Watergate to prosecute corrupt officials — was reduced from 36 lawyers to two last year, according to NOTUS, and stripped of authority to file new cases.
- In 2025, the administration canceled 159 federal enforcement actions against 166 companies — more than 30 of which donated to Trump's inauguration or White House ballroom, according to Public Citizen.
- Reuters, citing three anonymous officials, reported that the SEC's top enforcement official resigned last week after agency leaders blocked her from aggressively pursuing cases touching Trump's circle. A spokesperson said the SEC applies securities laws faithfully in every case and that debate among staff is "common and encouraged."
The other side: The administration points to its aggressive pursuit of benefits fraud, including through a new DOJ division and anti-fraud task force led by Vice President Vance.
- The White House says the effort targets waste in federal programs regardless of party — though critics note the crackdown has focused almost exclusively on Democratic-led states.
The bottom line: Trump came to power promising to destroy a system rigged for the wealthy and connected. Many of his voters are still waiting for the payoff.
