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corruption
Top SEC Official Reportedly Quit Over Leadership’s Soft Pedaling of Trump-Linked Cases
New reporting reveals that the top enforcement official at the Securities and Exchange Commission clashed with agency leaders over cases involving billionaires Elon Musk and Justin Sun.
Mar 24, 2026
The top enforcement official at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency tasked with investigating insider trading and other illegal activity in financial markets, resigned last week after reportedly clashing with the regulatory body's leadership over the handling of cases linked to President Donald Trump.
Reuters reported Monday that Margaret Ryan, who until last week served as director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, "wanted to be more aggressive in pursuing charges for fraud and other misconduct, including in cases that touched the president's circle, but faced resistance from SEC chair Paul Atkins and other top Republican political appointees."
Ryan, who previously served as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, lasted just under seven months in the SEC role, which observers said is unusual. According to Reuters, one case that "sparked tension" between Ryan and SEC leadership "involved cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, a major backer of the Trump family's World Liberty Financial venture."
Earlier this month—less than two weeks before Ryan announced her departure from the agency—the SEC dismissed a case against Sun that the Biden administration brought in 2023, accusing the billionaire of violating "antifraud and market manipulation provisions of the federal securities laws."
Reuters reported that another case over which Ryan and SEC leaders clashed "involved Tesla boss Elon Musk, a big donor to Trump's campaign who briefly served as the president's special adviser."
"March court filings showed that the SEC is in talks with Musk to settle charges that he waited too long to disclose in 2022 that he had amassed a large stake in Twitter, which he later bought and renamed X. That allowed Musk to buy more shares at artificially low prices, it said. The agency filed the charges a week before Trump took power in January last year."
"During a March 4 court hearing, the details of which were first reported by the FT, a lawyer for Musk said those talks were with officials above the SEC staff working on the case, the transcript shows," the outlet continued. "While it is common for the agency to settle litigation out of court, it had strong cases against both Sun and Musk and a good chance of winning tougher penalties in court, according to securities lawyers who had been tracking the proceedings."
Bombshell reporting alleging that the @SECGov enforcement director suddenly quit 6-mo into the job over the political appointees going too easy on Justin Sun & Muskhttps://t.co/t88oOk3AUu
— Amanda Fischer (@amandalfischer) March 23, 2026
Ryan's abrupt departure comes at a time when a small number of unidentified traders and gamblers are making huge, suspiciously timed bets related to major US foreign policy decisions, including in Venezuela and Iran. The lucrative bets have sparked concerns that members of Trump's inner circle are illegally profiting off nonpublic information—and potentially influencing life-or-death government decisions.
The New York Times noted that Ryan's exit could "further embolden" Atkins, the Trump-appointed SEC chair, to "rein in the agency’s enforcement division."
"Well before Ms. Ryan arrived," the Times reported last week, "the agency had begun to retreat from a variety of Biden-era enforcement priorities, including cracking down on Wall Street and the cryptocurrency industry."
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'Mind-Blowing Corruption': Traders Placed Massive Bets Minutes Before Trump Post on Iran
"Who was it? Trump? A family member? A White House staffer?" asked US Sen. Chris Murphy.
Mar 24, 2026
Just minutes before US President Donald Trump momentarily boosted the stock market—and sent oil prices tumbling—with his disputed Monday announcement of peace talks with Iran, unknown traders loaded up on positions that allowed them to profit from the resulting movement in equities and commodities.
The Financial Times reported that "roughly 6,200 Brent and West Texas Intermediate futures contracts changed hands between 6:49 am and 6:50 am New York time on Monday, just a quarter of an hour ahead of the US president’s post on Truth Social that there had in recent days been 'productive conversations' with Tehran to end the war in Iran."
FT added that the notional value of those trades was $580 million.
"Trading volumes for Brent and WTI leapt at the same time, 27 seconds before 6:50 am," the newspaper reported. "Futures tracking the S&P 500 share index jumped in price moments after the oil trade, with volumes also rising significantly during that timeframe. It was not known whether one entity or several entities were behind Monday’s trades."
An unnamed trader at a "major hedge fund" told FT that "my gut from watching markets for the last 25 years is this is really abnormal."
"It’s Monday morning, there’s no important data today, there aren’t any Fed speakers you’d want to front-run. It’s an unusually large trade for a day with no event risk," the trader said. "Somebody just got a lot richer.”
A BBC review of market data similarly found that "traders bet hundreds of millions of dollars on oil contracts just minutes before" Trump's announcement of talks with Iran. Iranian officials publicly denied that they are negotiating with the Trump administration, and Iran's top lawmaker accused the US president of peddling "fake news" in an attempt to "manipulate the financial and oil markets."
The suspiciously timed bets ahead of the US president's post heightened concerns that Trump administration insiders are illegally trading on—and profiting massively from—nonpublic knowledge.
Responding to a report that $1.5 billion worth of S&P 500 futures was purchased just five minutes before Trump's Monday announcement, US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked: "Who was it? Trump? A family member? A White House staffer?"
"This is corruption," the senator wrote. "Mind-blowing corruption."
Last week, Murphy joined US Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) in unveiling legislation that would ban prediction markets on "government actions, terrorism, war, assassination, and events where an individual knows or controls the outcome."
The bill came on the heels of suspiciously timed, highly profitable bets related to US military actions in Venezuela and Iran.
The Guardian reported Monday that several newly created accounts on the online prediction platform Polymarket "laid bets on a US-Iran ceasefire over the weekend that appeared to show signs of insider knowledge, according to experts."
Researcher Ben Yorke told the newspaper that the accounts—which are anonymous—"definitely" look like "someone with some degree of inside info."
The Guardian noted that "online crypto watchers and experts suggested that the bets bore the signs of insider trading—both because they bought their positions at market price, and because some of the accounts looked like they could belong to a single investor attempting to conceal their identity by splitting their bet between multiple wallets."
According to Yorke, "Typically, when you see wallet-splitting and deliberate attempts to obfuscate identity, it’s one of two scenarios: either a very large investor trying to shield their position from market impact, or insider trading."
The Trump White House insisted Monday that any suggestion of insider trading "is baseless and irresponsible reporting."
“The White House does not tolerate any administration official illegally profiteering off of insider knowledge," said White House spokesperson Kush Desai.
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New Bill Would Crack Down on Prediction Markets After Suspicious Bets on Maduro, Iran
"No one should be able to gamble on death and destruction, especially people connected to Trump with insider knowledge,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
Mar 18, 2026
Two Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation that would prohibit online prediction markets from allowing bets on government actions that could be easily gamed by insiders.
The proposed Banning Event Trading on Sensitive Operations and Federal Functions (BETS OFF) Act, unveiled by US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), would ban "wagering on government actions, terrorism, war, assassination, and events where an individual knows or controls the outcome."
The lawmakers said the legislation was necessary due to suspiciously timed bets that were placed on the cryptocurrency-based prediction platform Polymarket related to imminent US military actions in Venezuela and Iran, raising concerns that Trump administration officials were using insider information to profit from life-or-death policy decisions.
The fact that the bets were placed on Polymarket is notable because Donald Trump Jr., President Donald Trump's eldest son, sits on the company's advisory board. Wired reported last year that Polymarket also received an investment from 1789 Capital, the venture capital firm where Trump Jr. serves as a partner.
Given this potential massive conflict of interest, argued Murphy, it is imperative for Congress to step in and put a stop to possible insider trades related to war and other government policy matters.
"There’s no getting around the fact that any prediction market where somebody knows or controls the outcome of a bet is ripe for corruption,” said Murphy. “Even worse, prediction markets are also an avenue by which government decisions get influenced by who's making money off them, and that should be unforgivable to the American public."
Murphy added that "when events that involve good and evil, life and death become just another financial product, morality no longer matters and the soul of America is fundamentally corrupted."
Casar said that the legislation is needed to battle the "crisis of corruption" engulfing the US government during President Donald Trump's second term.
"Too often, prediction markets are becoming yet another place for rich and powerful people to cash in on insider information," Casar said. "This bill will put a stop to that."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—who is co-sponsoring the bill along with Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), and Rep. Gabe Amo (D-RI)—said it was "sickening" to think of Trump administration insiders making money from their own acts of military aggression.
"No one should be able to gamble on death and destruction, especially people connected to Trump with insider knowledge,” Tlaib said. “Congress must ban profiting from war and war crimes."
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