Dem
47
GOP
53
After "Liberation Day," when Donald Trump announced his brutal tariffs, the stock market crashed. Then a few days later, he mostly relented and the market soared. On April 14, we noted a few oddities associated with the markets, such as a massive volume of call options bought on April 9 with an expiration date of April 9. Buying such an option makes sense only if you have a strong feeling that the markets will surge before closing that day. To many Democrats, that smelled fishy.
One Democrat who didn't like the odor much is NY AG Letitia James. She has started an inquiry to see if anyone in Trump's inner circle might just have profited from inside knowledge that Trump was going to scrap many of the tariffs later that day. That would be insider trading and is a felony.
Since the New York Stock Exchange is located in her jurisdiction, she is Wall Street's top cop and has exercised her authority over it many times in the past. In particular, the New York State Martin Act, named after a guy named Martin, grants the NY AG expansive powers to police securities fraud occurring in New York State. When conducting an investigation, the AG does not have to show probable cause to issue subpoenas and doesn't have to disclose what he or she is up to before filing charges. One (controversial) provision in the Act is that the State does not have to prove the defendant had "intent" to defraud, just that the defendant did something that disadvantaged others. James is an experienced prosecutor and if there was insider trading, she can probably subpoena records that show very unusually timed purchases. And she is probably not dealing with Bernie Madoff-level crooks who know what they are doing and get away with it for years. It is more likely opportunists who got some inside information and acted on it immediately. In any event, she is on the case. (V)