Minutes before Trump’s post
Bought SPY call options (strike ~$509) at ~$2.14 premium
Value rose from ~$624k to ~$10M by day’s end ($9.4M profit) .
Table sources: Carl Icahn trade ; 2019 “chaos trades” ; Greene’s 2025 trades ; April 2025 options trades .
“I didn’t know anything,” Icahn claimed. He just happened to sell his entire position days before it tanked. He hadn’t traded Manitowoc in years.
“You can’t prosecute a hunch. But you can smell when something’s rotten.”
– Former SEC official, off-record
Even inside Trump’s own cabinet, the pattern held. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross—one of the architects of the administration’s trade policy—admitted to short-selling a shipping firm tied to Russian interests just before news broke that sank the stock. He called it an ethics compliance move.
In 2019, Rep. Chris Collins—another Trump ally—was convicted of insider trading after calling his son from a White House picnic to warn him about a failed drug trial. Trump pardoned him in 2020.
“Trump’s tariffs weren’t just policy. They were market signals.”
– Prof. Donna Nagy, Indiana University, on ethics law
The STOCK Act, passed in 2012, makes it illegal for public officials to trade on nonpublic information. It applies to Congress. It applies to the president. But enforcement is another story. The SEC doesn’t comment on ongoing investigations, and without subpoenas and brokerage data, the trail goes cold fast.
Lawmakers are pushing for more than just transparency.
“Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now.”
– Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, via Twitter
She wasn’t guessing. She’d seen the options volume spike right before Trump posted. House Leader Hakeem Jeffries called it “a crooked casino.” And Sen. Elizabeth Warren revived her push for a total ban on congressional stock trades.
The TRUST in Congress Act, the PELOSI Act, the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act—they’ve all been proposed. None have passed. And for now, lawmakers like Greene are still free to buy and sell, as long as they report it later.
Greene, for her part, says the outrage is “Democrat theater.”