Trump just pardoned a convicted insider trader, just as insider-trading stories swirl around him

Ever since the Stock Act of 2012, government officials have been warned that they’re not exempt from going to jail for insider trading. Just ask Stephen Buyer, the former Indiana Republican, who had spent nearly two years in federal prison, before Donald Trump decided to issue a pardon for him.

This Friday, the White House released a full and unconditional pardon (per Associated Press) for Buyer, the former Indiana Republican convicted of insider trading tied to the T-Mobile–Sprint merger and a consulting-firm acquisition, both involving his own clients.

Donald Trump is issuing way more pardons than he did during his first term, having already signed more than 1600 of the things despite being only a year and a half into his second administration, a sharp increase compared to the 148 across his entire first term.

Yet, the pardon itself is not the issue here. It’s the fact that it comes at a time when there are reports that Trump insiders engaged in insider trading, with Bubblemaps co-founder and CEO Nicolas Vaiman telling 60 Minutes. “Luck alone cannot explain those numbers.”

Rep. Steven Horsford was recently on the House floor asking why someone placed enormous market bets 18 minutes before a tariff-pause announcement, and shorted oil by hundreds of millions 47 minutes before a presidential statement on Iran. The administration has offered no explanation as of writing this piece.

The Trump family portfolio

Let’s talk about the family portfolio for a moment. Financial disclosures revealed more than 3,700 stock trades run through Trump’s holdings (via Foreign Policy Journal) in the first quarter of 2026. JD Vance tried to assure the public that the president doesn’t personally day-trade on a phone app.

And over in Kazakhstan, Don Jr. and Eric Trump took stakes (per MSN) in a shell company that merged into a tungsten venture backed by $1.6 billion in U.S. government financing, according to Reuters. This is the deal Trump personally discussed with Kazakhstan’s president. 

The legality of this activity has been widely questioned, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren sounding the alarm. “This is corruption in plain sight,” she wrote on Instagram, referring to Trump’s controversial $1.8 billion slush fund that caused outrage in Congress.