Three oil-futures positions worth $2.2 billion, each taken shortly before an administration announcement moved the market. A federal regulator opened a formal investigation. Separately, prediction-market bets on pardons drew a warning from the White House to its own staff.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission opened a formal investigation on 15 April 2026. Two members of Congress requested a joint SEC/CFTC probe. No finding of wrongdoing has been made, and the traders have not been publicly identified.
Separately from the above, the president's own quarterly ethics filing recorded more than 3,700 stock transactions valued between $220 million and $750 million, in companies including several under active administration regulation. One Nvidia purchase came roughly a week before the Commerce Department approved Nvidia chip sales to China.
Every transaction on that form was flagged as reported more than thirty days after notification, and the filing notes that late fees were paid. The stated defence is that the assets sit in a trust managed by his children and that he has no involvement: "I don't get involved… We have funds that run my money."
Set against that defence is his own later statement that those same children have "inside information" in "almost anything they do."