Well-timed or just lucky? Top Trump officials' stock sales clustered before tariff news

USA Today

4 days ago

Several top Trump administration officials sold off stock market holdings in the days leading up to the president's announcements of sweeping tariffs that sparked fears of a global trade war and rattled financial markets.
Sales by top officials, including Cabinet members, their deputies and senior White House officials were clustered in two 10-day periods leading up to President Donald Trump's major tariff announcements Feb. 13 and April 2, according to a USA TODAY analysis of 20 officials' publicly available transaction forms. Of the stock and stock fund sales administration officials reported between Jan. 20 and April 30, 90% fell within 10 days of the tariff announcements.
The Feb. 13 announcement had little immediate impact on the markets, but stock prices plummeted after April 2. The markets have recovered since April 9 when Trump paused the tariffs, and the S&P 500 index was up about 7.5% for the year as of July 21.
'It is concerning and begs the question of whether these public officials knew something that informed their trading,' said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of policy and government affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan government watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.
'We don't know whether they used any private knowledge to benefit. That would require at least some Justice Department inquiry.'
Trades complied with ethics rules and did not rely on nonpublic information, according to spokespeople for several of those in the analysis. Others did not respond to USA TODAY's requests for comment.
'Insinuating this was anything other than an ethically fully compliant transaction required for government service is dishonest and demonstrates a lack of understanding of both how markets and our ethics laws work," said Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the Department of the Interior, defending trades reported by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Burgum and several other officials faced deadlines to divest their holdings to serve in the Trump administration, and USA TODAY found no evidence any of these trades were made based on nonpublic information. Such a connection is hard to prove, ethics experts say, but they recommend officials avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
On Feb. 13, Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on countries worldwide. Then on April 2, which Trump dubbed 'Liberation Day,' he unveiled specific tariff figures on countries across the globe, triggering a broader market sell-off and raising fears of a recession.
The early February spike in sales was in part driven by divestments by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Burgum. The late March flurry included sales by Troy Edgar, deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; and Keith Sonderling, deputy secretary at the Department of Labor.
USA TODAY reported that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino sold up to $5 million in Trump Media stock the day before the Liberation Day announcement, and Attorney General Pam Bondi sold a similar stake on the day of the announcement, which came after markets closed.
A handful of sales before Trump's tariff announcements also came from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, as well as White House Counsel David Warrington and Sergio Gor, director of the Office of Presidential Personnel.
'Hard to prove'
Spokespeople for Duffy, Burgum, Edgar, Kennedy, Bondi, Warrington and Sonderling responded to questions by saying the divestments had nothing to do with the tariff announcements. Hegseth did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.
After ProPublica first reported on Bondi's April 2 sale, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, sent a letter to the Justice Department inspector general urging an investigation into whether Bondi or other DOJ officials 'engaged in illegal insider trading.'
'This stock sale had been in the works since Attorney General Bondi's nomination process in constant consultation with the Department of Justice's Ethics Department" and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, DOJ spokesman Gates McGavick said in a written statement to USA TODAY. 'Any implication that it was somehow tied to tariffs is an outright lie.'
Duffy's stock transactions were made through an independently managed retirement account, according to an unsigned statement from the Transportation Department press office, and he 'had no input on the timing of the sales.'
Edgar's sales had nothing to do with Liberation Day, said Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokeswoman.
By reporting on 33 stock sales by Deputy Secretary Sonderling just days before the April 2 announcement, USA TODAY is 'creating a fictitious narrative to generate clickbait,' said Courtney Parella, a Labor Department spokesperson.
Not all of the disclosure forms USA TODAY reviewed showed stock or stock fund sales before Trump's tariff announcements. Transactions by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Deputy Counsel to the President Gineen Bresso fell outside those time periods. Education Secretary Linda McMahon offloaded bonds worth millions, but not stocks.
'Good questions to ask'
The USA TODAY analysis focused on 250 sales of stocks, stock funds and cryptocurrencies disclosed in publicly available transaction forms filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
It doesn't include all Cabinet members or White House officials, but only those whose disclosures were published on the ethics office website as of July 15.
The findings show an increase in divestment activity in the 10 days ahead of the February news event, followed by a sharper spike in a similar period before Liberation Day. Together, these sales accounted for about 90% of transactions reported between Inauguration Day and April 30.
Specifically, about 60% of the disclosed sales came in the 10-day window ending April 2, with a dollar value ranging from $2.7 million to $13 million.
The sales outside these periods represented between $1.9 million and $7 million.
Government ethics watchdogs say the findings are 'striking' as well as 'concerning.'
'It is hard to prove an insider trading case because it is not like there is a video showing impropriety,' said Hedtler-Gaudette. 'You have to be extremely sloppy and stupid to get caught.'
Trump's trade agenda was a consistent theme throughout his campaign, and he promised to impose tariffs in his inaugural address for the second term.
The Feb. 13 announcement had little immediate impact on the markets. But after April 2, when the president unveiled specific tariff figures, the stock market lost almost $10 trillion in value, with the S&P 500 plummeting 12% through April 9, when Trump hit a pause on tariffs.
'Looks like there was a lot of activity between March 15 and April 2. That is very concerning,' said Virginia Canter, chief counsel for oversight and anti-corruption at State Democracy Defenders Action, a nonprofit group that says it opposes autocracy. 'It could be a coincidence, too.'
Officials cashing out just before the Liberation Day announcement should raise some eyebrows, she said.
'Why didn't they divest sooner? Were they in possession of nonpublic information? These are all good questions to ask. They are fair questions to ask,' said Canter, a White House associate counsel to presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
How does the ethics office work?
Government officials and members of Congress are required to publicly disclose their stock trades under the 2012 STOCK Act, which is designed to prevent officials from profiting from nonpublic information they learn by virtue of their positions. They are not prohibited from trading based on public information.
An Office of Government Ethics spokesman, Patrick Shepherd, declined to comment on whether the agency reviews the timing of transactions.
Officials who go through Senate confirmation sign an ethics agreement with the office. The agreement, which takes effect upon confirmation, also may require the official to divest from holdings if the companies in question are likely to have business before the agency.
Upon confirmation, officials have 90 days to divest and come into compliance. A few chose to sell on the final day of the 90-day window or within the first week of taking office, while a significant number completed their divestments around major news events originating from the White House.
For example, Gabbard and Bondi were required to divest stocks under their ethics agreements. Gabbard sold holdings in Apple, Tesla and cryptocurrencies on the final day of her divestment window, and Bondi sold her Trump Media stake on Liberation Day, just before the public tariff announcement.
Unlike Senate-confirmed officials, White House officials are not required to sign agreements with the ethics office, but they are still obligated to report any financial transactions during their time in office.
White House ethics officials typically work to ensure that staff avoid conflicts of interest, but the extent of that consultation − and any divestiture requirements − is less transparent than for Senate-confirmed officials, who sign publicly available ethics agreements outlining their divestment obligations.
Of the 20 officials included in USA TODAY's analysis, six who serve in White House roles were not subject to the same ethics office requirements. The remaining were Senate-confirmed jobs and signed ethics agreements requiring them to divest certain holdings within 90 days of confirmation.
Once officials have entered into an ethics agreement, Canter said, 'they will argue they were following their obligations to divest.' But, she said, the difficult question of whether these trades were strategically placed or merely lucky timing still needs to be addressed.
To that end, Canter said, ethics officials should interview these officials. Still, it may require an investigation by the Justice Department or the Securities and Exchange Commission to reach a conclusion, she said.
'You look at the facts and circumstances,' she said. "You might ask: Why did they sell before the president announced tariffs? Maybe they were caught unaware or didn't know what was coming. They'd need to be interviewed and, if necessary, conduct an investigation.'
White House Counsel David Warrington sold three stocks on March 25: NVIDIA, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway.
'The timing of white House counsel trades is concerning by virtue of them being in the White House,' Canter said.
Warrington did nothing wrong, said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman.
'White House senior staff, including Dave Warrington, fully comply with the executive branch ethics rules,' Rogers said, 'attending required ethics briefings and complying with conflict of interest and financial reporting obligations.'
Separately, the nonprofit news agency ProPublica in May identified more than a dozen White House officials and congressional aides who appeared to have timed their stock trades before widespread stock market sell-offs triggered by White House announcements.
'Strong, clear rules' needed
Though members of Congress have occasionally faced public scrutiny over well-timed stock trades, similar activity by executive branch officials has received far less attention.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, several lawmakers sold off millions of dollars in stocks just before the market crashed. These moves triggered a Justice Department inquiry at the time as the lawmakers had been briefed on the severity of the virus, information that was not yet fully public, and were accused of offloading stocks even as they publicly downplayed the threat.
Online bots now monitor the portfolios of high-profile lawmakers. The "Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker" closely follows the California Democrat's trades. Questions have been raised about the timing of her transactions and the impressive returns of her portfolio, especially when it outpaces the broader market.
'Strong, clear rules that apply to everyone is the only way to avoid this kind of thing,' said Hedtler-Gaudette of the Project on Government Oversight.
It is not the sales that captured lawmakers' attention but the purchases made April 9, when Trump paused tariffs. Just before the pause that sent markets soaring, unknown traders placed multimillion-dollar bets on a rebound, Reuters reported. Some Democratic lawmakers called for an investigation into possible market manipulation or insider trading, though experts told Reuters there's no way to determine whether the moves were strategic or coincidental.