Warren, Whitehouse Probe Suspicious Oil Trades Surrounding Trump Iran Announcements
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), sent a letter to Michael S. Selig, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, requesting an investigation into unusual trading patterns in oil futures that took place immediately preceding two major Trump Administration announcements regarding the military conflict with Iran. The Senators noted this is now a recurring concern during the Trump Administration, with several instances in which well-timed trades appeared to anticipate major Administration decisions before they were publicly announced across oil futures, equity options, and prediction markets.
“On the morning of March 23, oil futures trading surged dramatically in the minutes before President Trump posted on Truth Social announcing talks with Iran to potentially de-escalate the war—a post that sharply increased stock market indexes and lowered crude prices. There was no public news preceding the announcement to explain the price movement,” wrote the Senators. “The same pattern appears to have recurred on April 7, 2026. In the hours before President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran—an announcement that sent oil prices down approximately 15 percent—traders placed an approximately $950 million bet on oil prices falling.”
The Senators concluded: “This pattern raises serious questions about whether there has been recurring misappropriation of material nonpublic government information and about the extent to which individuals inside or outside the government have acted on such information.”
The Senators requested written responses by April 30, 2026.
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