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The settlement also imposes a three-year ban on Perez trading event contracts and requires him to cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, the CFTC said in its order. Agency officials credited his full cooperation with investigators for reducing the civil penalty from a potentially higher amount. The commission further noted that Kalshi had assisted throughout the probe after detecting the irregular activity.
Perez placed 49 trades and won 39 of them by correctly anticipating whether specific words or phrases would appear in presidential addresses, according to a CNN review of the CFTC filing. Those events included the State of the Union, the National Prayer Breakfast, a Medal of Honor ceremony, various rallies and a January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The regulator determined that in his position Perez had advance access to the prepared remarks and misappropriated that material nonpublic information in breach of his duty to the government for personal gain.
Kalshi’s surveillance systems flagged the unusual betting patterns on its mention markets in March, prompting the company to freeze more than $90,000 in Perez’s account and refer the case to the CFTC, a New York Times dispatch from that period reported. In a social media post reacting to the settlement, the platform’s lead lawyer Bobby DeNault stated, “It doesn’t matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences.” The exchange had previously told reporters that words spoken by political leaders can move billions in related financial markets, underscoring the sensitivity of such contracts.
Perez had operated Trump’s teleprompter since 2016 and held the rank of deputy assistant to the president and technical advisor with a reported annual salary of $175,000, The Independent noted citing a White House disclosure to Congress. He was placed on unpaid administrative leave in July when the investigation became public, and administration officials later confirmed he no longer holds any government position. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told multiple outlets at the time that President Trump considered the reported conduct a disgrace.
The resolution arrives months after the CFTC issued a February advisory on prediction-market integrity that highlighted parallel instances of nonpublic information misuse, including a case involving former congressman George Santos and his own State of the Union appearance, according to the agency’s release. Platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket have recorded billions of dollars in trading volume on political and economic events this year, a Bloomberg analysis found. Regulators continue to refine oversight as these event contracts attract broader participation.
Filings show Perez would read the full speech text before executing trades, purchasing “yes” contracts only on phrases present in the script and sometimes withdrawing positions when Trump appeared likely to deviate, a Reuters summary of the order indicated. Manhattan federal prosecutors reviewed the evidence but declined to open a criminal case, multiple outlets including ABC News reported. The civil settlement concludes the matter while reinforcing prohibitions on insider trading in the rapidly expanding prediction sector.
