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adam schiff
Senate Democrats Urge SEC Probe of Possible Trump Market Manipulation, Insider Trading
"Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos?" asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Apr 11, 2025
Amid mounting concerns over possible stock market manipulation by President Donald Trump and members of his inner circle, Democrats in the U.S Senate on Friday joined their House colleagues in urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate potential insider trading and other violations related to the chaos caused by the administration's mercurial global trade war.
After slapping sweeping tariffs of 10% or more on almost every country in the world last week, Trump abruptly paused some of the levies for most nations. These moves prompted a stock market plunge, followed by a robust rally that saw over $5 trillion in value added to the market in just hours on Wednesday—a day the president proclaimed that "this is a great time to buy" stocks and openly boasted about enriching his billionaire buddies.
"In any administration this corrupt it is more than necessary to ask, were people personally profiting from insider information?"
According to a Bloomberg estimate, Wednesday's bounceback bonanza added $304 billion to the collective wealth of the world's top billionaires, with Elon Musk, the world's richest person and the de facto head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, adding an estimated $36 billion, or about 10%, to his net worth.
"We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public, and whether any insiders, including the president's family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the president's announcement," six Democratic senators—Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.)—wrote Friday in a letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins.
Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos? Today with @schumer.senate.gov and Senate Democrats, I officially called for an SEC investigation to find out. Presidents are not kings.
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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) April 11, 2025 at 6:08 AM
"It is unconscionable that as American families are concerned about their financial security during this economic crisis entirely manufactured by the president, insiders may have actively profited from the market volatility and potentially perpetrated financial fraud on the American public," the senators continued. "At this critical moment, the SEC must do its part to restore Americans' faith in the rule of law and to preserve the integrity of the financial system, in accordance with its statutory mission."
In a video posted on social media Wednesday, Schiff asked, "The question is, who knew what the president was going to do, and did people around the president trade stock knowing the incredible gyration the market was about to go through?"
"This is a president who is trading in his own meme coin even as he's president, his kids are trading in their own cryptocurrency, you've got people like Elon Musk who are doing their own conflicted self-dealing in the administration, and in any administration this corrupt it is more than necessary to ask, were people personally profiting from insider information while peoples' savings, their retirement accounts, are being torched," he added.
"The American people deserve to know if any representatives took advantage of their positions for personal gain."
The senators' letter follows a similar missive led by House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and sent to Atkins, SEC Inspector General Deborah Jeffrey, and U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro on Thursday requesting an "immediate" investigation into "possible insider trading and market manipulation violations that took place between Sunday, April 6, 2025, when U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent visited President Trump at his Florida resort, and Wednesday, April 9, 2025, when the president announced the pausing of the tariffs—and whether such unlawful activities are ongoing."
"Insider trading by federal officials and their friends or family is not only a breach of trust of the American people, but erodes the integrity of government institutions and raises concerns about corruption and fairness in the political system," the letter states. "There should be zero tolerance for this kind of corruption in our society, let alone from those we entrust to lead us in the public sphere."
In yet another letter sent on Thursday, six Democratic representatives—Joe Neguse (Colo), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Seth Magaziner (R.I.), Mike Levin (Calif.), Dave Min (Calif.), and Steven Horsford (Nev.)—asked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to "call on every member of the House of Representatives to immediately file and release their periodic trading reports for any transactions conducted between April 2, 2025 and April 9, 2025."
"The American people deserve to know if any representatives took advantage of their positions for personal gain," the letter states.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said during an interview with Spectrum News NY1 that "I don't think that Trump just coincidentally said buy stocks and then shortly later made an announcement that dramatically inflated and dramatically raised a lot of these asset prices."
"I do not care if you're a Democrat, I do not care if you're a Republican: If you are trading individual stock when the market is being manipulated in this way, you need to answer for it," Ocasio-Cortez added.
On Wednesday, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) also called for a probe of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) stock purchases during this week's market drop, and "whether any K Street lobbyists or other big firms were tipped off by Donald Trump's actions."
In an interview with Meidas Touch published Friday, Casar said that "it's just remarkable how much a culture of corruption has completely infected and taken over the entire Republican Party."
Casar: At the end of the day, this is about taking your hard-earned money and giving it to themselves—or funneling it to their friends. That’s all this is about.
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— Acyn ( @acyn.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 9:23 AM
"This is all part of the same story. They crash the market and then open it up to insider trading so that... members of Congress, K Street lobbyists, the billionaire donor buddies of Donald Trump can cash in after everybody's retirement accounts got screwed over," Casar continued.
"At the end of the day," he added, "this is all about basically taking your hard-earned money and giving it to themselves or funneling it to their buddies."
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No Thanks to These 52 Dems, House Defeats Bill Enabling Trump Assault on Nonprofits
"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," said Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman.
Nov 13, 2024
Legislation that would have handed President-elect Donald Trump sweeping power to investigate and shutter news outlets, government watchdogs, humanitarian organizations, and other nonprofits was defeated in the House of Representatives on Tuesday after a coalition of progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers mobilized against it, warning of the bill's dire implications for the right to dissent.
But 52 Democratic lawmakers—including Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)—apparently did not share the grave concerns expressed by the ACLU and other leading rights groups, opting to vote alongside 204 Republicans in favor of the bill.
One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, joined 144 Democrats in voting no.
The measure ultimately fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to approve legislation under the fast-track procedure used by the bill's supporters, but progressives wasted no time spotlighting the Democrats who supported the measure.
"If you're looking for a handy list of Democrats who have no fucking clue what is about to hit and need their spines stiffened ASAP, this is a good place to start,"
wrote Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the advocacy group Indivisible.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who
vocally opposed the legislation, wrote that "these 52 Democrats voted to give Trump the power to shut down any nonprofit he wants."
"The NAACP, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, no organization would be safe," Tlaib added. "Shameful."
If passed, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act would grant the Treasury Department—soon to be under the control of a Trump nominee—the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by deeming them supporters of terrorism.
The bill could be revived in the next Congress, which is likely to be under full Republican control.
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel with the ACLU, toldThe Intercept late Tuesday that "we will continue our sustained opposition."
It is already illegal under U.S. law to provide material backing for terrorism, and the executive branch has significant authority to target groups it considers terrorist-supporting.
"This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."
The ACLU
noted ahead of Tuesday's vote that while the bill contains "a 90-day 'cure' period in which a designated nonprofit can mount a defense, it is a mere illusion of due process."
"The government may deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations," the group said. "This means that a nonprofit could be left entirely in the dark about what conduct the government believes qualifies as 'support,' making it virtually impossible to clear its name."
Opponents of the bill warned that Palestinian rights organizations would be uniquely imperiled if it passed.
"This bill dangerously weaponizes the Treasury against nonprofit organizations and houses of worship—Christian, Jewish, or Muslim—that dare to support Palestinian and Lebanese human rights or criticize Israel's genocidal actions," said Robert McCaw, director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"Allowing such sweeping, unchecked power would set a chilling precedent, enabling the government to selectively target and suppress voices of dissent under the guise of national security," McCaw added. "This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."
Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97), a Palestinian American, echoed that sentiment following Tuesday's vote and condemned the legislation's 52 Democratic supporters.
"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," Romman wrote on social media. "This is no longer business as usual. To agree to give him this kind of power is beyond egregious."
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MSNBC's Chris Hayes Catches Fox News Red-Handed Deceiving Its Audience to 'Clean Up' for Trump
"Do you see what they did there, on their own network?"
Oct 17, 2024
MSNBC's evening news anchor Chris Hayes walked his audience through an overt deception perpetrated by Fox News Wednesday night as the right-wing cable outlet used selective editing of Donald Trump during Bret Baier's primetime interview with Kamala Harris.
The line of questioning from Baier stemmed from recent public remarks Trump made in which he said "the enemy from within" was the most serious danger to the nation and that he would use both the National Guard and U.S. military to go after "radical-left lunatics," which he claimed included Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a centrist member of the Democratic Party currently running for U.S. Senate in California.
When Harris invoked these comments to criticize Trump for threatening to turn the U.S. military against people who have different political beliefs than him, Baier interrupted her to say that the former Republican president had been asked about those very remarks earlier in the day during a separate town hall-style event, also hosted by Fox.
But in the clip shown by Baier to the television audience and to which Harris was asked to respond, Fox only included a small part of what Trump actually said on the subject during the town hall, leaving out his clear repetition of calling Schiff and others "the enemy from within" who must be dealt with.
As Hayes explains during his examination of what transpired, Baier used a selected "soundbite to try to clear Donald Trump of saying a thing in which he cut out the part where says it."
Watch the segment:
"Do you see what they did there, on their own network?" asked Hayes of the selective editing by Fox producers. "[Trump] said—he repeated—'They are the enemy within... they're sick people... they're evil.' He repeated it! And then Brett Baier's like, 'Let me play you what [Trump] said today,' and just cut out the big chunk."
In her reaction to the clip showed by Baier, Harris said, "Bret, I'm sorry and with all due respect—that clip was not what he has been saying about the 'enemy within' when he has been speaking about the American people. That's not what you just showed."
When Baier tried to explain that he was just trying to show his response to a question, Harris interjected, "You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him."
"This is a democracy," Harris continued. "And in a democracy, the president of the United States should be able to handle criticism without saying they are going to lock people up for doing it. And this is what's at stake, which is why you have someone like the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying what Mark Milley has said about Donald Trump being a threat to the United States of America."
For his part, Hayes said the entire episode—in which Trump refused to climb down from his fascist positions, but Fox still tried to "clean up" for him—represents "the same playbook we see over and over from Fox."
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