Democrats press White House over potential ‘insider trading’ before Trump tariff pause
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(WASHINGTON) — Democratic lawmakers are “urgently” calling for the White House to issue a full disclosure of financial transactions leading up to President Donald Trump’s sudden pause on a sweeping set of tariffs earlier this month, raising concerns that people close to the president “potentially violated federal ethics and insider trading laws” surrounding his actions.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., sent a letter on Monday, signed by a group of 23 other Democrats, to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, calling for a commitment from all senior White House and executive branch employees to “expeditiously” transmit all reports related to their securities transactions since the start of Trump’s term to the Office of Government Ethics, requesting, too, that all of this mandatory reporting be made public.
The letter, shared first with ABC News, also asks that any extensions granted to White House employees related to their accounting reports become public, noting that this was practiced during the first Trump administration.
“We are concerned that no periodic transaction reports have been posted on the OGE database for White House officials’ individual disclosures at any point since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025,” Schiff and Levin wrote.
“There is reason to doubt that not a single senior White House official or employee has made any financial transactions triggering a periodic transaction report since the start of the Administration,” the letter continued. “As an important point of reference, during the first Trump Administration, periodic transaction reports filed by senior White House officials were made publicly available on the OGE’s disclosure database, as required by the Ethics in Government Act and the STOCK Act.”
The White House did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment.
Hours before Trump announced he was rolling back tariffs to 10% to all countries except China, which sent the stock market soaring, he posted on Truth Social: “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” and “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
Stocks were down the morning before Trump’s Truth Social post. Nasdaq soared 12.1% at close, the index’s largest single-day gain since 2021, while the Dow jumped 7.8%, its biggest one-day increase in five years.
“Newly identified data raises concerns about potential violations of federal ethics and insider trading laws by individuals close to the President with access to non-public information,” Schiff and Levin’s letter reads.
Trump has said he hasn’t engaged in insider trading himself — but that he couldn’t definitively claim that members of his administration have not. “I can commit to myself, that’s all I can commit to,” Trump told reporters on Friday, when asked whether he could assure Americans that no one in his administration was insider trading with information about trade deals coming together.
Trump said he hires “honorable people” but said, “I have thousands of people that work for me, but I can’t imagine anybody doing that.”
The Democrats requested a response from Wiles no later than May 9, 2025, and for a “detailed plan” for how the administration plans to address any officials and employees who may have failed to file required disclosures from the start of the administration.
“By failing to take these steps, the Administration would be withholding critical information from the American people regarding potential violations of federal ethics and insider trading laws. We look forward to reviewing all required reports and disclosures,” Schiff and Levin wrote.
“Senior White House officials have influence over or become witting of consequential policy decisions that can have market moving impacts,” the letter said. “It is critical that such officials adhere to all applicable ethics, conflict of interest, and disclosure requirements.”
“The American public deserves nothing less than full transparency, particularly in the context of the harm done to pension funds and retirement savings as a result of the President’s erratic trade policy,” it continued
The letter was signed by Sens. Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren, Jeffrey Merkley and Elissa Slotkin, as well as Reps. Brad Sherman, Brad Schneider, Angie Craig, Jerry Nadler, Rashida Tlaib, Cleo Fields, Yassamin Ansari, Seth Magaziner, Pramila Jayapal, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Nanette Diaz Barragán, Mark DeSaulnier, Madeleine Dean and Delia Ramirez.
Schiff had previously written to Wiles and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer over the rollbacks on Trump’s tariffs. In that letter, sent with Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Schiff asked for an investigation into potential conflicts of interest. Schiff has not received a response from Wiles following his request, a spokesperson for the senator told ABC News.
When President Donald Trump arrives in the Persian Gulf Tuesday for his first overseas visit since regaining the White House, he’ll touch down in a region that’s rich in opportunity. On the diplomatic front, he’s expected to focus on trade agreements and economic ties.
But for Trump and his family, there are also opportunities in the form of business ventures and real estate deals.
Some ethics experts say the way his family business has approached these opportunities brings up familiar concerns of potential conflicts of interest as Trump meets with the region’s leaders, who could hold sway over the success of Trump’s ventures there.
During Trump’s first term, his family said they wouldn’t pursue any new overseas business ventures. But now, in Trump’s second term, the Trump Organization has several active projects in the Gulf region — including some that have launched in the months since Trump returned to office — suggesting that his self-imposed moratorium has dissipated.
Trump’s visit to the United Arab Emirates, for example, comes just over a week after the Trump Organization announced the development of an 80-floor residential building and club called the Trump International Hotel & Tower, Dubai.
At a launch party for the project last week, an executive of Dar Global, the development firm partnering with the Trump Organization, said in a highly produced social media clip that the project “is perfectly positioned to capture Dubai’s growth, offering investors the rare chance to be part of a global success — powered by the Trump name and Dar Global’s expertise.”
And last week, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, announced that an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm would be making a major $2 billion investment in the firm.
USD1, World Liberty Financial’s so-called “stablecoin” — a digital asset designed to maintain a stable value — is expected to be used to complete Emirati investment firm MGX’s $2 billion investment transaction in crypto exchange Binance, ABC News reported.
In Qatar, Trump will arrive just two weeks after his son Eric Trump inked a deal to develop a $5.5 billion golf club just north of Doha, called the Trump International Golf Club, Simaisima, which will include “an 18-hole golf course, exclusive clubhouse, and Trump-branded villas,” according to plans.
And in Saudi Arabia, three Trump Organization projects are currently underway, including two residential projects and a golf course. The development firm they’ve partnered with for many of these regional projects, Dar Global, reportedly has close ties to the Saudi government.
Trump also recently hosted a high-profile golf tournament for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour at his Trump National Doral resort near Miami.
Before Trump was sworn in for his second term, Eric Trump announced that the Trump Organization had hired an outside ethics adviser to help the firm enact a “series of comprehensive ethical measures” that would “proactively address potential conflicts.”
“Although neither federal law nor the United States Constitution prohibits Presidents from continuing to own, operate, and manage their businesses and investments while in office, The Trump Organization has taken these additional steps as part of its ongoing commitment to ensuring transparency, upholding the highest legal standards and avoiding even the appearance of ethical concerns,” said the announcement.
Many ethics experts have roundly criticized the arrangement as insufficient. Danielle Brian, executive director of the nonpartisan government watchdog Project on Government Oversight, told ABC News that the Trump Organization’s business endeavors, including those overseas, are entirely legal — but that Trump is “taking the weakness in our current ethics laws … to just a whole new level in this administration.”
“We’ve never seen the kind of money at stake and the kind of brazen leveraging of political power for a personal financial gain that we’ve seen in this administration,” Brian said.
Ahead of Trump’s visit to the Gulf, the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote that “Trump knows that the decisions he makes as president could affect his bottom line, and foreign officials in those countries could provide special treatment for the president of the United States — or exact punishment for decisions they don’t like.”
Trump has yet to release his financial disclosures as president, so it’s unclear what arrangements he has made to ensure a firewall between his personal businesses and his presidency. But Trump and the White House have repeatedly and forcefully denied that his private business interests amount to a conflict of interest.
Asked Friday whether Trump would conduct any personal business meetings during his visit to the Middle East, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.”Ahead of Trump’s visit to the Gulf, the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote that “Trump knows that the decisions he makes as president could affect his bottom line, and foreign officials in those countries could provide special treatment for the president of the United States — or exact punishment for decisions they don’t like.”When President Donald Trump arrives in the Persian Gulf Tuesday for his first overseas visit since regaining the White House, he’ll touch down in a region that’s rich in opportunity. On the diplomatic front, he’s expected to focus on trade agreements and economic ties.
But for Trump and his family, there are also opportunities in the form of business ventures and real estate deals.
Some ethics experts say the way his family business has approached these opportunities brings up familiar concerns of potential conflicts of interest as Trump meets with the region’s leaders, who could hold sway over the success of Trump’s ventures there.
During Trump’s first term, his family said they wouldn’t pursue any new overseas business ventures. But now, in Trump’s second term, the Trump Organization has several active projects in the Gulf region — including some that have launched in the months since Trump returned to office — suggesting that his self-imposed moratorium has dissipated.
Trump’s visit to the United Arab Emirates, for example, comes just over a week after the Trump Organization announced the development of an 80-floor residential building and club called the Trump International Hotel & Tower, Dubai.
At a launch party for the project last week, an executive of Dar Global, the development firm partnering with the Trump Organization, said in a highly produced social media clip that the project “is perfectly positioned to capture Dubai’s growth, offering investors the rare chance to be part of a global success — powered by the Trump name and Dar Global’s expertise.”
And last week, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, announced that an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm would be making a major $2 billion investment in the firm.
USD1, World Liberty Financial’s so-called “stablecoin” — a digital asset designed to maintain a stable value — is expected to be used to complete Emirati investment firm MGX’s $2 billion investment transaction in crypto exchange Binance, ABC News reported.
In Qatar, Trump will arrive just two weeks after his son Eric Trump inked a deal to develop a $5.5 billion golf club just north of Doha, called the Trump International Golf Club, Simaisima, which will include “an 18-hole golf course, exclusive clubhouse, and Trump-branded villas,” according to plans.
And in Saudi Arabia, three Trump Organization projects are currently underway, including two residential projects and a golf course. The development firm they’ve partnered with for many of these regional projects, Dar Global, reportedly has close ties to the Saudi government.
Trump also recently hosted a high-profile golf tournament for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour at his Trump National Doral resort near Miami.
Before Trump was sworn in for his second term, Eric Trump announced that the Trump Organization had hired an outside ethics adviser to help the firm enact a “series of comprehensive ethical measures” that would “proactively address potential conflicts.”
“Although neither federal law nor the United States Constitution prohibits Presidents from continuing to own, operate, and manage their businesses and investments while in office, The Trump Organization has taken these additional steps as part of its ongoing commitment to ensuring transparency, upholding the highest legal standards and avoiding even the appearance of ethical concerns,” said the announcement.
Many ethics experts have roundly criticized the arrangement as insufficient. Danielle Brian, executive director of the nonpartisan government watchdog Project on Government Oversight, told ABC News that the Trump Organization’s business endeavors, including those overseas, are entirely legal — but that Trump is “taking the weakness in our current ethics laws … to just a whole new level in this administration.”
“We’ve never seen the kind of money at stake and the kind of brazen leveraging of political power for a personal financial gain that we’ve seen in this administration,” Brian said.
Ahead of Trump’s visit to the Gulf, the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote that “Trump knows that the decisions he makes as president could affect his bottom line, and foreign officials in those countries could provide special treatment for the president of the United States — or exact punishment for decisions they don’t like.”
Trump has yet to release his financial disclosures as president, so it’s unclear what arrangements he has made to ensure a firewall between his personal businesses and his presidency. But Trump and the White House have repeatedly and forcefully denied that his private business interests amount to a conflict of interest.
Asked Friday whether Trump would conduct any personal business meetings during his visit to the Middle East, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.”Ahead of Trump’s visit to the Gulf, the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote that “Trump knows that the decisions he makes as president could affect his bottom line, and foreign officials in those countries could provide special treatment for the president of the United States — or exact punishment for decisions they don’t like.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who has stayed largely out of the political limelight since leaving office, sharply criticized President Donald Trump – her opponent in the 2024 presidential election – over tariffs, government cuts, and the direction his administration is taking the country, during remarks on Wednesday in San Francisco.
Her remarks, delivered at the 20th anniversary celebration for Emerge, an organization that supports Democratic women running for office, came as the Trump administration celebrates its accomplishments in its first 100 days – a date Harris acknowledged.
“Now I know tonight’s event happens to coincide with 100 days after the inauguration, and I’ll leave it to others to give a full accounting of what’s happened so far,” Harris told the audience.
“But I will say this, instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals,” she said.
Harris has had few public appearances since departing the White House and has limited her political activity, but on Wednesday night, she called out Trump by name.
“We all know President Trump, his administration and their allies are counting on the notion that fear can be contagious. They are counting on the notion that, if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others,” Harris said.
“But what they’re overlooking, what they’ve overlooked, is that fear isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious,” Harris said to raucous cheers.
Harris had brought up similar themes – including the “courage is contagious” line – during remarks at a women of color leaders summit in early April.
That courage, Harris added on Wednesday, extends to Americans protesting against what she called “the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history.”
“Americans across the political spectrum who are declaring that the president’s reckless tariffs hurt workers and families by raising the cost of everyday essentials; devastate the retirement accounts that people spent a lifetime paying into; and paralyze American businesses, large and small forcing them to lay off people, stop hiring, or pause investment decisions,” she said.
Trump and the White House have argued that tariffs will help Americans be better off economically in the long run and will level the playing field between the U.S. and its trading partners.
Later in her remarks, speaking more broadly about the White House’s actions, Harris said she would describe the current moment in America as a “high-velocity event” to implement an agenda she claimed was “decades in the making” to shrink and privatize government while giving tax breaks to the wealthy.
“It’s an agenda, a narrow self-serving vision of America, where they punish truth tellers, favor loyalists, cash in on their power and leave everyone to fend for themselves, all while abandoning allies and retreating from the world,” Harris said. “And folks, what we are experiencing right now is exactly what they envision for America.”
Americans should be ready, if the “checks and balances” such as Congress “ultimately collapse,” Harris said, to work together and raise their voices.
“I am not here tonight to offer all the answers, but I am here to say this, you are not alone, and we are all in this together — and straight talk, things are probably going to get worse before they get better, but we are ready for it. We are not going to scatter. We are going to stand together, everyone a leader,” Harris said.
At the end of her remarks, Harris struck a populist note: “Always remember this country is ours. It doesn’t belong to whoever is in the White House. It belongs to you. It belongs to us. It belongs to We The People.”
The former Democratic nominee for president has had few public appearances since departing the White House, and has limited her political activity.
Harris’ speech came as she is set to possibly re-enter politics in the coming months. Harris has been mulling a run in California’s gubernatorial race and will make a decision by the end of summer, two sources familiar with her plans told ABC News in March.
Some Democrats have also floated her as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, although some of her longtime supporters have told ABC News they are torn over that prospect.
Whether she runs for either office or not, Harris’ public remarks thus far have sometimes included veiled and explicit swipes at the Trump administration and the president himself.
In remarks at a women of color leaders summit in early April, she weighed in on the second Trump administration, saying “there is a sense of fear that has been taking hold in our country” but that “courage is also contagious.”
And in remarks at the NAACP Image Awards in February, Harris framed the “chapter” America is in as one that “will be written not simply by whoever occupies the oval office nor by the wealthiest among us. The American story will be written by you. Written by us. By we the people.”
Harris and her spouse, Doug Emhoff, have been the target of recent actions by Trump.
Trump issued a memo in March that revoked the security clearances and access to classified information of his previous presidential opponents — Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris — as well as more than a dozen former administration officials. On Tuesday, Emhoff said he had been dismissed from the board of trustees of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as the White House confirmed it had removed board members.
-ABC News’ Averi Harper, Zohreen Shah, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Student Borrower Protection Center
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio returned to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, appearing before his former colleagues for the first time since his confirmation to defend the president’s foreign policy and the administration’s budget priorities for the year ahead.
Rather than a warm homecoming, Rubio was quickly on defense, with several Senate Democrats pressing the secretary on the State Department’s reorganization and spending cuts, as well as Middle East policy and El Salvador detentions.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., spent much of his allotted time criticizing Rubio on a number of issues, including his coziness with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and the Trump administration’s failure to “facilitate” in returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant who was erroneously deported to El Salvador, to the United States. Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland at the time he was deported.
“In the case of El Salvador, absolutely, absolutely, we deported gang members, gang members — including the one you had a margarita with. And that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gang banger, and that and the evidence is going to be clear,” Rubio asserted, referring to Van Hollen meeting with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador in April.
“Mr. Chairman, he can’t make unsubstantiated comments like that,” Van Hollen protested. “Secretary Rubio should take that testimony to the federal court of the United States because he hasn’t done it under oath!”
Van Hollen has said neither man drank from the glasses that he said officials put on the table during the meeting that appeared to have liquid inside with salt or sugar rims.
“No judge and the judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy,” Rubio shot back. “No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner or what I need to say to them, and if I do reach that foreign partner and talk to them, I have under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch. Diplomacy doesn’t work that way.”
“You’re just blowing smoke now,” Van Hollen said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, had to intervene in the at-times contentious conversation as Van Hollen compared Rubio’s policy on deportations and the El Salvador detentions of migrants to the “shameful era” of McCarthy-era witch hunts and the red scare, saying the administration’s “campaign of fear and repression is eating away at foundational values of our democracy.”
“Back then, it took one voice, attorney Joseph Welch, to cut through the hysteria with a simple question that marked the beginning of the end of that shameful era: ‘Have you no sense of decency?'” Van Hollen said as he concluded his line of questioning. “And I would ask you the same, Secretary Rubio. You have shown, with your words and your actions what your answer is. I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you as secretary of state.”
