Senate and House Democrats called for an investigation into whether President Donald Trump engaged in insider trading and market manipulation in relation to his recent pause on tariffs.
In an April 11 letter addressed to new SEC Chair Paul Atkins, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore; and Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked the SEC to “investigate potential violations of federal securities laws by President Trump and his affiliates.”
House Financial Services Committee ranking member Maxine Waters, D-Calif., along with 18 other committee Democrats, sent a similar letter April 10 to Atkins, SEC Inspector General Deborah Jeffrey and Comptroller General Gene Dorado, who leads the Government Accountability Office.
The letters specifically raise concern about Trump’s TruthSocial post April 9, in which the president wrote “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT” hours before he announced a 90-day pause on all reciprocal tariffs, except for those on China.
The stock market saw historic gains after the announcement of the tariff pause, and the Trump Media & Technology Group stock — the parent company for TruthSocial with the ticker DJT — “finished the session up more than 21%, its strongest day this year,” CNBC reported.
“A federal official encouraging the public to buy stock in a specific company would appear to be a clear attempt to manipulate the market or influence stock prices in violation of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act (the ‘Exchange Act’). These provisions prohibit fraudulent or deceptive practices in connection with the purchase or sale of securities,” Waters and other House Democrats wrote in their letter.
The lawmakers also raised concern about potential insider trading given "President Trump invited nearly two dozen members of Congress to meet him at the White House on April 8, 2025 — just a day prior to his tariff walk-back announcement," according to the letter.
Senate Democrats wrote that Trump officials and affiliates may have known in advance that the president would announce a tariff pause and the stock market would improve, meaning they “may have actively profited from the market and potentially perpetrated financial fraud on the American public.”
Therefore, both letters called for an investigation into the matter.
A White House spokesperson said in a statement, “It is the responsibility of the president of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering. Democrats railed against China’s cheating for decades, and now they’re playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump’s decisive action (Wednesday) to finally corner China.”
A GAO spokesperson confirmed the agency received the congressional request, stating in an email that the "GAO has a process it goes through to determine whether we do work and when, which we are working through right now."
An SEC spokesperson declined to comment.
