A White House teleprompter operator has been placed on unpaid leave amid a Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigation into insider trading on the prediction market platform Kalshi, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and two people familiar with the probe said on Thursday.
The two people, who were granted anonymity to discuss details of the investigation, said the CFTC was looking into Gabriel Perez, a longtime teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump.
Trump “believes it's deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace,” Leavitt told reporters at a press briefing. “And the individual that was cited in that report is complying with the CFTC but has been put on [un]paid administrative leave. There will be a teleprompter operator tonight, of course, but it will not be the one unfortunately in that story.”
ABC News first reported on the investigation. It’s the latest example of a high-profile disclosure of alleged insider trading on prediction markets, which have rapidly gained popularity in recent years.
“Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC after an exchange investigation,” Robert DeNault, Kalshi’s head of enforcement, said in a statement. “We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral.”
In April, Kalshi suspended three congressional candidates for betting on their own races.
Virginia candidate Mark Moran, who launched an insurgent bid to primary Democratic Sen. Mark Warner before launching an independent bid, said at the time that he had gambled on his race in an effort to call attention to Kalshi’s effects on young men.
“I traded $100 on myself, knowing this would happen (also knowing that I wouldn’t be vying for the democratic nomination) and the attention it would create to highlight how this company is destroying young men and as Senator I will go after Kalshi and impose significant penalties on them - 25% - a vice tax - to pay down our national debt,” he wrote on X.
Perez did not respond to a request for comment sent through the White House, and he could not immediately be reached directly.
Declan Harty and Cheyanne M. Daniels contributed to this report.
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