White House aide fined for using speech previews to bet on Trump's remarks

Gabriel Perez, a White House teleprompter operator, was ordered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to pay over $172,000 for using confidential speech details to place bets on prediction markets. The penalty includes disgorgement of $107,539 in profits and a $65,000 fine, along with a three-year trading ban. The CFTC said Perez cooperated with the investigation, which was initiated after Kalshi flagged suspicious activity.

EXPANDED:

Perez, who had operated the teleprompter for Trump since 2016, used his access to upcoming speech content to wager on "presidential mention" contracts on the Kalshi platform. The CFTC's order requires him to surrender $107,539 in illicit gains plus a $65,000 civil penalty, and bars him from prediction markets for three years.

The case