Letter to Jay Clayton, Chairman of the SEC, Heath Tarbert, Chairman of the CFTC, William Barr, Attorney General of the DOJ, and Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI - U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin Seeks Investigation into Possible Market Manipulation Regarding Market Bets Timed to Trump's Comments on Trade War & Other Geopolitical Events

Letter

U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin today joined her colleagues in calling for federal authorities to investigate, protect our financial markets, and ensure no one is cashing in on material nonpublic information from the Trump administration, foreign nations, or other entities, after a number of suspicious trades raised red flags about possible market manipulation or insider trading.

Vanity Fair recently reported that a mysterious trader or traders may have made more than a billion dollars in potential profits from suspicious market bets timed to e-mini S&P 500 futures trades and subsequent statements or actions from President Donald Trump regarding trade negotiations with China or from other actors with respect to other geopolitical events.

The Senators, led by Jack Reed (D-RI), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), are asking investigators and regulators to probe suspicious trading activity in our financial markets to determine if any rules, laws, or regulations were violated.

In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Senators called for an investigation into whether there was wrongdoing, and if so, who is behind the potential windfall.

"Some may have an unfair trading advantage because of privileged access to nonpublic market-moving information potentially from government sources and, as a result, raise concerning questions about the integrity of our financial markets and our public institutions," the Senators wrote.