There’s steep competition as to which federal outfit under Donald Trump stinks of corruption the most.
Certainly, the Justice Department is in the running, as is the Department of Homeland Security. But the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the body tasked with regulating some of the prediction markets and cryptocurrencies that the president’s family has used to amass a fortune since Trump returned to the White House — also has a credible claim to the title.
And a new report from Bloomberg highlights a potential scandal at the agency that raises questions about whether there was a cover-up involving potential insider trading.
Bloomberg explained how a top CFTC adviser named Mel Gunewardena ordered investigators to retract their referral of an insider trading probe to the agency’s enforcement division. The investigation involved suspicious oil trades ahead of a March announcement from Trump in which he backed down from some of his threats against Iran.
Billions of dollars’ worth of contracts predicting oil would fall and the S&P 500 would rise were placed about 15 minutes before the president announced his U-turn in a post on Truth Social, fueling widespread speculation about whether someone had an unfair advantage.
The report lays out why some CFTC officials felt Gunewardena’s action was so odd:
Career experts had always been entrusted with the specialized but prosaic task of gathering reams of data and writing preliminary reports that the attorneys in enforcement would then decide whether to pursue.
Now, according to the people, an adviser to [Trump-appointed CFTC Chairman Michael] Selig was intervening to scuttle the referral and oversee the gathering of data himself.
Bloomberg said the CFTC declined to comment and that Gunewardena didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Concerns about insider trading in the oil industry — an industry in which the president has personally invested — have been swirling around the Trump administration amid its deadly war with Iran. In August, MS NOW’s Chris Hayes and journalist Antonia Juhasz discussed the oil industry’s vulnerability to insider trading, whether on the stock exchange or via prediction markets. Amid such concerns, Trump’s CFTC has sought to prevent states from regulating prediction markets, including ones the president’s family has invested in.
And all of this is fueling understandable suspicion about why a top CFTC official would order his underlings to retract their recommendation for an insider trading probe. Another CFTC official reportedly told Bloomberg that Gunewardena, who served in Trump’s first administration, was in the best position to lead an investigation into the oil trades because of his previous experience at Goldman Sachs and his seniority at the agency.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — who has raised concerns about possible insider trades involving oil for months — said in a statement:
It is disturbing that a senior advisor to Chairman Selig may have intervened in efforts by agency career staff to do their jobs and investigate potentially billions of dollars worth of insider trading. Chairman Selig and Mr. Gunewardena should answer to Congress about the latest status of the agency’s investigations and potential enforcement actions to stop insiders from profiting off of the President’s war with Iran.
Bloomberg’s report comes at a time when public anger over corruption — and Trump’s self-enrichment while in office — continues to mount. A recent Gallup poll found that 89% of Americans said they think corruption in the government is widespread. And according to a recent AP-NORC poll, nearly 6 in 10 adults in the U.S. believe that Trump has used either illegal or unethical means to profit from the presidency.
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