Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demanded an investigation into “insider trading” in Congress after the stock market resurrected when President Donald Trump put his “Liberation Day” tariffs on hold.
“Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X Wednesday.
“I’ve been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor. Disclosure deadline is May 15th,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “We’re about to learn a few things. It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks echo those from Trump nemesis Sen. Adam Schiff, who demanded a probe into the matter on Thursday.
“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,” Schiff wrote on X.
Schiff shared a letter co-signed by Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego to the acting head of the Office of Government Ethics, Jamieson Greer, and Trump’s Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles:
“We write to request an urgent inquiry into whether President Trump, his family, or other members of the administration engaged in insider trading or other illegal financial transactions informed by advance knowledge of non-public information regarding his changes to tariff policy, yesterday or at any time during this administration.”
Schiff also suggested Trump was guilty of “corruption.”
“Look, this is a president who is trading in his own meme coin, even as he’s president, his kids are trading in their own cryptocurrency,” he said on X.
Trump, meanwhile, said he hit pause on the super-charged tariffs because people “were getting yippy,”
“BE COOL!” he wrote on Wednesday morning before announcing the pause that afternoon. “Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”
Just after the markets opened, Trump insisted in another post: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Daily Beast: “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.”
He added that, in the past, Democrats “railed against China’s cheating for decades.”
“And now they’re playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump’s decisive action yesterday to finally corner China,” Desai said.
The about-face and subsequent revival of the market caused some Democrats to become suspicious. Connecticut democrat Senator Chris Murphy questioned who knew about the move before it happened.
”Who close to Trump knew that he was going to suspend the tariffs? Which of his Mar-a-Lago friends or his billionaire advisers were able to capitalize on that inside information?" he asked in a video posted on X Wednesday.
“This entire White House is one giant grift,” he added. “An insider-trading scandal is brewing.”
The White House responded in a statement shared with NBC.
“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 fear-mongering,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “Instead of grasping at straws to try landing a punch on President Trump, Democrats should focus on working with the administration to restore American Greatness.”
Ocasio-Cortez also shared a post from Spencer Hakimian, the founder of Tolou Capital Management: “NASDAQ call volume spiked minutes before the 90 day tariff pause was announced. Not a good look at all.”
