{"id":8198,"date":"2025-04-11T20:07:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T20:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-go-all-in-on-unproven-insider-trading-allegations-as-they-target-trumps-tariffs\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T20:07:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T20:07:18","slug":"democrats-go-all-in-on-unproven-insider-trading-allegations-as-they-target-trumps-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-go-all-in-on-unproven-insider-trading-allegations-as-they-target-trumps-tariffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats go all in on unproven insider trading allegations as they target Trump’s tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Congressional Democrats are raising increasingly pointed concerns about potential financial malfeasance by President Donald Trump and his allies surrounding his dramatic recent tariff moves, despite a lack of evidence of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> on Friday joined the growing number of Democrats formally calling for investigations zeroing in on the wild swings in the stock market amid Trump’s escalating trade war. It\u2019s one of the central messages the party has coalesced around in the 48 hours since Trump partially reversed his implementation of sweeping trade barriers.<\/p>\n

Trump on Wednesday morning posted to Truth Social that it was a \u201cGREAT TIME TO BUY\u201d despite the chaos within the financial markets. Hours later, Trump announced he was pausing the most sweeping global tariffs for 90 days, causing a temporary but dramatic stock market rally.<\/p>\n

Some Democrats quickly questioned whether there was financial gain to be had amid the market whiplash, though no evidence has emerged of insider trading or other wrongdoing, and top party leaders have now followed suit.<\/p>\n

In the latest salvo, Schumer joined Sens. Elizabeth Warren<\/a> (D-Mass.), Mark Kelly<\/a> (D-Ariz.), Ruben Gallego <\/a>(D-Ariz.), Adam Schiff<\/a> (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden<\/a> (D-Ore.) and Schumer in requesting SEC Chair Paul Atkins<\/a> to launch an investigation into where Trump or those around him \u201cengaged in insider trading, market manipulation, or other securities laws violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unconscionable that as American families are concerned about their financial security during this economic crisis entirely manufactured by the President, insiders may have actively profited from the market volatility and potentially perpetrated financial fraud on the American public,\u201d the senators said in the letter.<\/p>\n

The White House accused Democrats of “playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump\u2019s decisive action yesterday to finally corner China,” according to a statement from spokesperson Kush Desai provided to media organizations. Trump, he added, was seeking “to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering.”<\/p>\n

In a separate letter Friday<\/a>, Schumer, Schiff, Warren and Wyden sent a letter requesting state attorneys general also launch investigations into any potential violations of state laws, including by members of Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not make this request lightly. No one \u2014 not even a president \u2014 is above the law. \u2026 Any proven misconduct must be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent permitted by the laws of your states,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

The senators’ actions followed two days of increasingly strident reactions from top House Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get to the bottom of the possible stock manipulation unfolding before the American people \u2014 including what, if any, advance knowledge members of the House Republican Conference had of Trump\u2019s decision to pause the reckless tariffs he put in place,\u201d House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> told reporters Thursday.<\/p>\n

As the minority party in both chambers, there aren\u2019t many options available for Democrats to force an investigation \u2014- they don\u2019t hold committee gavels, and they have limited avenues for getting legislation considered.<\/p>\n

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Corte<\/a>z (D-N.Y.) said she and her colleagues were discussing \u201cseveral options\u201d including a discharge petition to force a vote on a congressional stock trading ban, though that effort faces an uphill climb after previous attempts to ban congressional stock trading have fizzled out.<\/p>\n

The disclosure of lawmakers\u2019 stock trades has presented a perennial ethics issue for members of Congress. Any trades that happened around the tariff-induced market swings must be publicly disclosed through congressional ethics authorities by May 15.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congressional Democrats are raising increasingly pointed concerns about potential financial malfeasance by President Donald Trump and his allies surrounding his dramatic recent tariff moves, despite a lack of evidence of wrongdoing. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday joined the growing number of Democrats formally calling for investigations zeroing in on the wild swings in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}