Journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin has speculated that government officials close to the administration of President Donald Trump engaged in insider trading in the weeks leading up to Trump's implementation of tariffs.
Sorkin, who co-anchors CNBC's Squawk Box, stated his suspicions that Trump administration officials let go of shares in their possession in anticipation of the implementation of sweeping tariffs on Monday.
"I don't know where you stand on this, because you're going to say we don't regulate these folks. But, you know, given what the government's been doing and this administration's been doing, it would not shock me, and I hate to speculate, if we were to find out that a whole bunch of people who work in Washington as our elected leaders one way or the other, ultimately sold stocks last week, or potentially worse than that, shorted the market," mused Sorkin during an interview with Mark Uyeda, Acting Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. "My question to you is: What you think the responsibility of the SEC is in those contexts?"
"Well, we have responsibility on insider trading regardless of whether they're inside or outside of government," replied Uyeda. "We have a very clearly established body of law for those who engage in acts that are prohibited by the insider trading rules."
"But if somebody- if somebody had access to the list of-, the tariff plan the day before the plan and decided to sell out of equities, or to short the market, or to do something else that I haven't thought about, right? Would that be considered inside information to you?" interjected Sorkin.
"It potentially could. You'd have to take, again, we've got-, there are two basic duties, what we call the classic insider trading theory law, as well as the misappropriation theory of law. There are various elements of that. If those elements are satisfied, they can be subject to insider trading liability," answered Uyeda.
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