Craig Holman on Insider Trading in Congress and the Prediction Markets

Earlier this month, multiple news outlets reported that President Trump’s teleprompter operator has been placing profitable bets on Kalshi regarding the content of Trump’s forthcoming speeches. 

Public Citizen has repeatedly appealed to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)  which oversees the prediction markets, to investigate and enforce the laws against insider trading.lep

On March 5, 2026, Public Citizen filed an insider trading complaint with the CFTC following highly suspicious trades on the timing and developments of the American invasion of Iran. 

On April 30, 2026, Public Citizen and Better Markets urged the CFTC to conduct rulemaking on prediction markets trading activity.

“Betting on political events on the prediction markets has become highly profitable for a small handful of anonymous bettors,” said Public Citizen’s Craig Holman. 

“Ever since the American invasion of Venezuela and Iran, a few people have been placing very large bets moments before the events take place, and scoring millions in profits. The timing and accuracy of these bets strongly suggest insider trading, probably by a few individuals in the know within the Trump administration.”

“News just broke that Trump’s teleprompter operator has been placing such bets on the content of Trump’s upcoming speeches. This is further evidence of illegal insider trading on the prediction markets – an industry that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has let operate like the Wild West.”

“Public Citizen again calls on the CFTC to wake up and do its job of overseeing the prediction market industry and enforcing the insider trading laws.”

Holman is the government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen. 

There was breaking news this week on the insider trading front when it was reported that the guy who operates Trump’s teleprompter was caught betting on Trump’s speeches. 

“Instead of trading on the stock market, this was insider trading on the prediction markets,” Holman told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “Most Americans had never heard of the prediction markets until the American invasions of Venezuela and Iran.” 

“Prediction markets traditionally allowed betting on whether a business was going to make it or not. But they have now expanded into political events and elections. Now, prediction market companies like Kalshi or Polymarket advertise that you can bet on anything you want. They have been taking bets on the American invasion of Venezuela.” 

“There was a lot of rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration. But to think that we were actually going to invade Venezuela and then capture the head of Venezuela, that was a long shot. But just hours before it happened, half a dozen very large bets were placed that we were going to invade Venezuela the next day and capture Maduro. And sure enough, those bets paid off. There were six suspected insider trading bets. And they made $1.2 million just on the timing of the American invasion.”

“Then other bets were placed on the invasion of Iran.  And those paid off several millions of dollars. One person won $553,000 on a bet that the leader of Iran would be out of power by a certain time. He placed the bet an hour before the Iranian leader was killed.”

“I filed complaints with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. I said to the CFTC – do your job. Who are these people? Are they members of the Trump administration, people who would know the timing of these invasions? The CFTC has yet to conduct any such investigation. In fact, the CFTC is being run by Michael Selig, who was an attorney for the prediction market industry. He was appointed by Trump to further deregulate the prediction markets. The CFTC has done absolutely nothing.”

“Just yesterday, ABC News reported that the teleprompter operator at the White House placed a number of bets on Kalshi on what Trump was going to say during a number of his speeches. He won tens of thousands of dollars. That teleprompter operator has now been relieved of his duties.” 

It’s interesting that these prediction market companies are being more aggressive in going after these insider traders than the government is. Wasn’t it Kalshi itself that released the information about the teleprompter operator?

“Yes and that is to the credit of Kalshi. But Kalshi and Polymarket and the other companies in the prediction market industry realize that there are currently legislative calls to prohibit this type of betting activity on the prediction markets and ban it altogether because it’s out of control.”

“So Kalshi is trying to do some self-regulating. It was Kalshi that turned over the evidence of the Trump insider doing that trading on Trump’s speeches. That’s to Kalshi’s credit. But that isn’t how these markets should be regulated. They should be regulated by a balanced and neutral governmental entity – the CFTC – and not by the businesses themselves that may or may not be honest with us about what’s going on.”

Congress is famous for being a hotbed of insider trading. There was legislation passed in 2012 regarding this. What did that do?

“That was called the Stock Act. What was illegal for you and I and Martha Stewart wasn’t illegal for members of Congress. The insider trading laws applied to all of us but not to members of Congress. And they exploited that.”

“There was a study done at the University of Georgia that showed that Senators enjoy a twelve percent higher rate of return on the stock market than the rest of us. That meant either they were geniuses at trading on the stock market, or they had some sort of inside information that we don’t have. Obviously, it was the latter.”

“So, we pushed for the Stock Act which did two things. One, it applied the insider trading laws to members of Congress. And second, it required online disclosure of any stock trading by members of Congress so we could monitor what members of Congress were doing.” 

“I also thought that just that disclosure system would discourage members of Congress from trading on the stock market altogether because of the political risks of doing so. Well, I found out after being involved in one case in which a member of Congress was sent to prison for insider trading, I started questioning whether the Stock Act was doing anything.”

“I conducted a study on the impact of the Stock Act. I measured Congressional trading activity three years prior to the Stock Act and three years after the Stock Act. I found that it did have a dramatic impact. It lessened Congressional stock trading activity by about two-thirds.  But the troubling result was that there is still one-third of Congress out there playing the stock market with direct conflicts of interest. And as we entered the pandemic, we saw a number of Senators who appeared to be engaged in insider trading.” 

“Several Senators were in a confidential meeting with the CDC. And the CDC explained to them how this pandemic was going to have a devastating effect on the economy and the stock market. And immediately after coming out of this meeting, they dumped all of this stock. And I called for an investigation of insider trading and nothing was ever done.”

“Ever since then I have been pushing for legislation just simply to ban stock trading by members of Congress altogether. I’m still working on that.”

The Stock Act was passed in 2012. And yet there have been no prosecutions under the Stock Act. Why is that?

“It’s very difficult to prove insider trading. But just by having the law itself apply to members of Congress, that makes members of Congress more cautious about stock trading activity altogether. But the best part of the Stock Act is the disclosures. Because of the disclosures, we were able to identify that a number of Senators had dumped all of their stocks after a confidential meeting. That’s the type of information we would not have had if it were not for the Stock Act.” 

“The Stock Act was necessary but we need to go a step further now. There is still a good portion of members of Congress who just don’t seem to care about their public reputations. So we have to just ban stock trading activity for Congress altogether.”

Nancy Pelosi is famous for engaging in heavy trading and she made a lot of money doing it.

“Her husband did. But yes, this is a bipartisan problem. Nancy Pelosi was always a champion of mine on all of my ethics work that I have been pursuing. She initially came out against banning Congressional stock trading activity because her husband made a living on it. But later she came around and decided to endorse the bill.”

“But insider trading scandals have hit both Republicans and Democrats. We were getting this ban on insider trading moving through the House. It was initially a Democratic bill. I had to get Republicans on board in order to stand a chance of getting it passed. Chip Roy took the lead on it. And we produced a bipartisan consensus bill – The Restore Trust in Congress Act (HR 5106). And it had bipartisan support. I was convinced we were going to win this session.”

“And then suddenly Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House, realized that Republicans might get credit for doing something good. And he came out against it. He proposed his own bill that he thought Republicans wouldn’t want. So now we are tied up in this competition between a good consensus bill and Jeffries’ bill, which would apply to Trump. So the Republicans won’t go for that.”

Jeffries’ bill would ban the President from trading in stock?

“Yes. The Jeffries bill would do that. The consensus bill would only apply to Congress.”

What’s wrong with banning the President from stock trading?

“As a policy matter, it’s fine. As a practical matter, it will not pass Congress. It is designed to make the Democrats look good and blame the Republicans for not getting a bill passed.”

I see that the members of Congress made over $630 million in stock trades last year. And six out of the top ten traders in Congress are Democrats, including at the top Senator Richard Blumenthal, Congressman Ro Khanna, who is running for President, Congressman Josh Gottheimer, Nancy Pelosi. It looks like the reason the Democrats don’t want this is because they want to keep trading.

“No doubt, this is a bipartisan problem. Democrats and Republicans alike are involved with trading on the stock market. This started as a Democratic reform bill. We have gotten most Democrats on board, with the exception now of Jeffries.” 

“I’m trying to appeal to the Speaker, Mike Johnson. I’m saying to him – you have this consensus bill. And if you bring this up to a vote on the floor, it will be approved. Most Democrats and a lot of Republicans are behind it. And it will be approved. You will get some credit for doing something good in the upcoming election. That did not convince Johnson. Instead, he came out with inadequate legislation – HR 7008 – that he calls Stop Insider Trading, but it does nothing of the sort. It really is a ruse. Johnson is bringing up that bill for a floor vote next week.”

[For the complete q/a format Interview with Craig Holman, 40 Corporate Crime Reporter 30(12), July 27, 2026, print edition only.]