Trump speech-writer staffer accused of cashing in on secret presidential scripts

A longtime teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump has been placed on unpaid administrative leave following federal allegations that he used advance knowledge of the president’s speeches to profit on prediction markets.

Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president who has operated Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, is currently in settlement talks with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. Investigators believe Perez generated more than $100,000 by placing bets on more than a dozen of Trump's public addresses.

According to sources, the activity was identified by the regulated prediction platform Kalshi on its "Mentions" market. The market allows users to wager on whether the president will utter specific words, phrases, or topics during a given speech.

"Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators," Kalshi's head of enforcement, Bobby DeNault, said in a statement.

Following reports of the investigation, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Thursday afternoon that Perez had been suspended without pay. Leavitt told reporters she discussed the matter with President Trump, who deemed the situation a "disgrace" and personally ordered the suspension. Leavitt added that she was unaware of any other White House personnel engaging in similar trading.

"The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow," White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.

The probe represents a significant expansion of federal efforts to police insider trading on prediction markets. The Department of Justice recently initiated its first two prosecutions in this domain. One case involves a special forces soldier accused of wagering on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, while the other involves a Google employee who allegedly leveraged internal company data to bet on user search trends. Both individuals have pleaded not guilty.

While President Trump has expressed philosophical reservations about prediction markets, he defended their legality in April, arguing that the United States could be "left out in the cold" if platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket were barred from operating domestically.

"Well, the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino, and you look at what's going on all over the world in Europe and every place, they're doing these betting things. I was never much in favour of it. I don't like it conceptually, but it is what it is," Trump told reporters at the time.

The controversy also arises amid broader commercial interest in the sector by the president’s business affiliates. Last October, the Trump Media and Technology Group announced it was exploring the launch of its own proprietary prediction market platform.

By Tamilla Hasanova