Sen. Adam Schiff demanded an urgent insider trading investigation into President Donald Trump amid growing speculation over the timing of a social media post before he announced his U-turn on tariffs.
Schiff, a regular target of the president–whom Trump has demeaned with nicknames like “watermelon head” and “shifty Schiff–called for the inquiry into whether Trump or anyone in his circle “engaged in insider trading or other illegal financial transactions informed by advanced knowledge of non-public information regarding his changes to tariff policy.”
The California senator also wants the probe to look into whether Trump family members or anyone else in the administration profited from the markets that skyrocketed after Trump backtracked on his tariff demands.
In a letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Jamieson Greer, acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Schiff and Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego wrote that Trump posted two messages on his Truth Social account before announcing a 90-day pause on most tariffs that had gone into effect earlier on Wednesday morning.
BREAKING: I’m demanding answers from the White House and Office of Government Ethics about whether anyone in the Trump family or administration profited off of this tariff chaos through insider trading: pic.twitter.com/GkGl4XZ7NO
— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) April 10, 2025
At 9.33 am on Wednesday, Trump posted: “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”
Four minutes later, the president followed up with another post: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
“Mere hours after his post, President Trump announced at 1.18 PM via Truth Social that he would be pausing most of the sweeping tariffs he had announced just days prior, causing stocks to soar,” the letter said.
Within minutes of the announcement, stocks rose more than 7 percent, closing up more than 9 percent. Pressures on bond yields, widely believed to be the catalyst for Trump’s about-face, eased off. The tech-focused Nasdaq index closed the day more than 12 percent up.
It is unusual for Trump to add his initials after a post. DJT is also the ticker for the president’s company, Trump Media & Technology Group, that controls Truth Social, whose stock shot up by 22 percent in the rally.
“This sequence of events raises grave legal and ethics concerns,” the letter continued. “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.”
Schiff, one of Trump’s strongest critics, pointed out that stock in Elon Musk’s Tesla car company increased 18 percent immediately after the tariffs announcement on Wednesday.
Schiff and Gallego asked that any records of communications between anyone connected to Trump and the White House and financial institutions, brokers, or investment advisors at around the time of the sudden stocks revival be preserved.
“I’m going to do my best to find out,” the Democratic lawmaker told TIME. “Family meme coins and all the rest of it are not beyond insider trading or enriching themselves. I hope to find out soon.”
“When my own barber asks me whether Donald Trump is selling short or doing this to try to make money for himself, it shows that a lot of people are pretty suspicious about what’s going on,” Sen. Tim Kaine added.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford drew attention to the timing of the posts soon after Trump announced he was freezing most tariffs while raising them on China.
“This is amateur hour,” he stormed. “You just got the rug pulled out from under you. This is not a game. This is real life.”
Another Democratic senator, Chris Murphy, posted on X that an “insider trading scandal is brewing. Trump’s 9:30am tweet makes it clear he was eager for his people to make money off the private info only he knew. So who knew ahead of time and how much money did they make?”
Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now.I’ve been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor.Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We’re about to learn a few things.It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress. https://t.co/YBKMGbraAu
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 10, 2025
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demanded all members of Congress disclose any stocks they had bought in the 24 hours before the announcement.
“I’ve been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor,” she wrote on X. “Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We’re about to learn a few things. It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress.”
The post Trump Nemesis Demands Insider Trading Probe After About-Face on Tariffs appeared first on The Daily Beast.
