WASHINGTON—A White House teleprompter operator with advance access to President Dementia Don’s prepared remarks is under federal investigation for using that access to place profitable wagers on what the president would say, according to two sources familiar with the inquiry.
The aide, Gabriel Perez, has run the teleprompter for the former president since the 2016 campaign, when a staffer reportedly Googled “teleprompter operators near me” to find one. Perez allegedly earned more than $90,000 in profits on Kalshi, a regulated prediction market where traders bet on which phrases public figures will utter.
The investigation is being conducted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency that oversees such markets. A Kalshi compliance officer who requested anonymity said the firm flagged the account after it demonstrated a success rate that defied statistical explanation.
“The trades exhibited a precision that was, frankly, spooky,” the officer said. “The account kept winning on phrases like ‘the late, great Hannibal Lecter’ with an accuracy that suggested access to a script. When someone nails ‘windmill cancer’ three minutes before the speech starts, you start asking questions.”
Perez was reportedly sidelined from the former president’s most recent major address, though the White House has declined to comment on his employment status. The investigation is the first known insider trading case to emerge from the the former president White House involving prediction markets, though ethics watchdogs note it follows a broad pattern of officials monetizing nonpublic information.
The probe was made public hours after the president himself floated a proposal to sell early access to tariff announcements and other policy decisions for a $100,000 monthly retainer. The subscription plan, described by one trade lawyer as “a bribery menu with a glossy cover,” would give wealthy corporations a head start on market-moving news before ordinary Americans could react.
