Trump aide allegedly made $100K betting on 12 speeches before anyone knew – then Kalshi stepped in

An important story is making waves across the blockchain ecosystem. The White House placed longtime teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez on unpaid administrative leave on July 16 after ABC News reported allegations that he used advance access to President Donald Trump's prepared remarks to earn more than $100,000 on Kalshi. Sources told the network that the alleged trading covered more than a dozen speeches over roughly three months and that Perez is discussing a potential settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC declined to comment.

Kalshi said its surveillance team promptly flagged, investigated, and referred the trades to the CFTC. NPR separately reported, citing unnamed sources, that the exchange froze about $90,000 and banned Perez from the platform. Related Reading Kalshi freezes insider accounts as $1.

Market Dynamics

5 billion Super Bowl trading tests market integrity The CFTC regulated platform is publishing enforcement like CME, signaling that integrity infrastructure is becoming the product. Feb 26, 2026 Gino Matos Detection without a public clock Kalshi’s system appears to have caught something unusual, investigated the account, and sent evidence to the federal regulator. The missing piece is when each step happened.

ABC News, The Associated Press, and NPR do not say when Kalshi first flagged the account, when trading was restricted, or when the referral occurred relative to the alleged series of more than a dozen speeches. Without those timestamps, it's impossible to tell whether Kalshi restricted the account before any further alleged trading took place. The governing framework is clear, though it has not been publicly applied to Perez.

A February CFTC advisory said misappropriating confidential information in breach of a duty can violate Commodity Exchange Act Section 6(c)(1) and Regulation 180. It also said designated contract markets have an independent duty to maintain audit trails, surveil trading, and enforce their rules. Kalshi's rulebook bars members with material nonpublic information or influence over an outcome from trading the relevant contract, and requires that unusual activity be reviewed and, where appropriate, investigated.

Market Impact

Related Reading The CFTC says prediction markets have an insider trading problem After listings exploded from about five a year to thousands, the CFTC is warning exchanges to catch manipulation before it hits headlines. Mar 15, 2026 Gino Matos The Perez allegations escalate a pattern reflected in the CFTC's general prediction-market warning and a separate Special Forces and Polymarket case covered earlier this year. This time, the claimed edge came from access to White House speeches, and the trades ran through a federally regulated exchange's mention markets.

The timing also coincides with Trump Media's July 16 announcement of Truth API, a paid data feed designed to deliver posts from Truth Social's most influential accounts, including Trump, to institutional customers in milliseconds. The company said the service, scheduled to begin Aug. 1, is aimed partly at high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms for which even brief information delays carry a cost.

Unlike the Perez allegations, the API concerns faster access to information after publication rather than to nonpublic remarks in advance. Still, the two developments expose adjacent markets built around the same commodity: receiving Trump's potentially market-moving words before slower participants can react. Related Reading Trump “not happy” with prediction markets – says world is a “casino” as Special Forces soldier arrested for insider trading on Polymarket US Special Forces soldier faces DOJ and CFTC charges over alleged classified intel trades as prediction markets’ integrity comes under fire.

Crypto markets are watching this development closely as investors weigh its potential impact on prices.