Traders Bet Big Minutes Before Trump’s Iran Post. Then A Top Regulator’s Adviser Reportedly Stepped In

Bloomberg reports that Mel Gunewardena, a senior adviser to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig, directed a supervisor to withdraw a referral flagging possible insider trading in oil markets. Staff in the agency's Division of Market Oversight had passed the matter to enforcement after spotting selling just before President Donald Trump reversed course on Iran on March 23, according to Daily Caller.

Over two minutes beginning at 6:49 a.m., traders unloaded Brent and West Texas Intermediate futures tied to 6 million barrels or more, over 8.5 times the usual volume for that hour during the previous week. Roughly a quarter hour afterward, Trump announced on Truth Social he was stepping back from a threat to strike Iranian power plants, and Brent dropped as much as 14%.

Gunewardena later put together his own team to redo the analysis. The supervisor was gone by July, and other staffers left or changed jobs, though a link is unclear. An agency official said the review was widened to cover international actors, and that enforcement is still examining March 23. A source called the contrary reporting "false and malicious," saying everyone referred is under investigation.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Daily Caller’s reporting. Read the full story at Daily Caller →