- United States
- Mo.
- Letter
I am writing to demand a congressional investigation into a suspicious oil futures trade that occurred minutes before President Trump's Iran policy announcement on Monday.
Between 6:49 and 6:50 AM, someone purchased 6,200 oil futures contracts worth $580 million. Twenty-four minutes later, the President announced he was holding off on bombing Iran's oil fields. Brent crude promptly fell from $113 to $96 per barrel — a windfall for whoever placed that trade. A veteran hedge fund trader with 25 years of experience described it as "really abnormal" and "an unusually large trade for a day with no event risk."
This was not luck. Someone appears to have had advance knowledge of a presidential decision and profited from it illegally. Congress must investigate with subpoena power to identify who made the trade, who leaked the information, and whether other policy announcements have been similarly exploited.
If administration officials are feeding sensitive information to traders, that is corruption at the highest level — and the American people deserve answers.