Cheating Cheaters Gonna Cheat…

It’s good to be the POTUS!

Trumpian corruption was graphically documented Monday morning.

Trump didn’t want the markets to tank at the opening bell, driving gas prices even higher, so he tweeted the news that productive talks with Iran had taken place over the weekend.

As CNBC reported, moments before Trump bleated out his market-turning post about “talks” with Iran, “S&P 500 futures and oil futures flashed an unusual burst of activity.

At around 6:50 a.m. in New York, S&P 500 e-Mini futures trading on the CME recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume, breaking from an otherwise subdued premarket backdrop. With thin liquidity typical of early trading hours, the sudden burst stood out as one of the largest volume moments of the session up to that point.

A similar pattern was observed in oil markets. West Texas Intermediate May futures also saw a noticeable pickup in trading activity at roughly the same time, with a distinct volume spike interrupting otherwise quiet conditions.

Roughly 15 minutes later, at 7:05 a.m., Trump said on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held talks and that he was halting planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure.

The Financial Times estimated that traders placed a $580 million bet on oil futures in that brief period Monday… and that doesn’t count the purchases of stock futures. What we know is that Trump caused a $3 trillion swing in the capitalization of the US securities markets with his bleat about “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East,” Less than half an hour later, Iran categorically denied that claim.

So, what happened in the moments before Trump’s Truth Social post? Writes Paul Krugman, “The story would be baffling, except that there’s an obvious explanation: Somebody close to Trump knew what he was about to do, and exploited that inside information to make huge, instant profits.” (Something similar happened before some Trump tariff moves and the attacks on Venezuela and Iran.)¹

Krugman makes the crucial point:

There’s a broader lesson here: You can’t trust a corrupt government to protect national security. And our government is now utterly corrupt: It’s hard to find a single senior official, from the president on down, who treats public office as a grave responsibility rather than an opportunity for personal self-aggrandizement and profit.

At this point, it’s probably worth mentioning that Trump’s installed functionaries at the SEC are actively blocking the enforcement division from investigating insider trading tied to the Trump family.

Well, suckers, that’s how you do it. Keep voting Republican!