Pam Bondi Implicated in As Much As $5.5 Million in Insider Trading
But what can be done about it?
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Martha Stewart went to federal prison for something smaller than this. Her case grew out of a stock sale worth $45,673; she sold her ImClone shares in December 2001, one day before bad news about the company went public, and the government convicted her in 2004, not for the trade itself but for lying to the investigators who questioned her about it. She served five months. Stewart was no ordinary citizen either. She was rich, famous, and connected, and none of it stopped the prosecution.
Pam Bondi sold as much as $5.5 million in Trump Media securities on April 2, 2025, and hours later Trump announced the tariffs that sank the stock she had just left. This is what open-air insider trading looks like, and insider trading, in case you didn’t know, is very illegal, a felony carrying up to twenty years per count. The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee referred it for investigation. We know why the federal government did nothing: Bondi ran the department that would have investigated her. The question this piece asks is why, fourteen months later, no New York prosecutor has opened a case.
Raskin is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. He referred the sale, which closed hours before the tariff announcement sent markets into a $10 trillion decline, and wrote that Bondi’s conduct “bears all the hallmarks of insider trading.” No investigation has been disclosed, the officials who could have opened one are gone, and the federal government has asked her nothing under oath about the trade.
New York State can still charge this. No pardon can stop it, no attorney general can quash it, and this article ends with the phone numbers.
Here is what the public record establishes.
Bondi received her Trump Media stake through the merger that took Trump’s company public. Her financial disclosure shows Digital World Acquisition Corp, the shell company that merged with Trump Media, paid her $2,969,563 in shares and warrants for consulting work on the merger. Her ethics agreement required her to sell within 90 days of her February 4, 2025 confirmation, a deadline in early May.
She sold on April 2. Her government transaction report shows a sale that day of between $1 million and $5 million in Trump Media shares plus between $250,000 and $500,000 in warrants; Raskin’s letter states the combined figure as between $1.25 million and $5.5 million. Trump announced the tariffs that evening, after the market closed. Trump Media closed April 2 at $18.76, opened the next morning at $17.92, and fell 13 percent over the following days.
The deadline required a sale by early May. Nothing required a sale on the one day that mattered.
Trump Media filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, dated April 1 and accepted April 2, the day of her sale, naming Bondi as a selling shareholder with 106,250 shares registered for sale. The company told Reuters the filing was routine and that no trading window was open for any of its affiliates.
Her disclosure form records the date of the sale and nothing else. It does not record the time, the price, or what she knew. Broker execution records answer the first two, and the first two are evidence of the third.
A single subpoena would produce them.
The federal government has not issued that subpoena, and the record of the past fourteen months shows why.
Raskin sent his referral to Inspector General Michael Horowitz on May 20, 2025. Horowitz left the department five weeks later to become inspector general at the Federal Reserve, and acting officials have run the office since. Bondi fired Joseph Tirrell, the director of the department’s ethics office and her own ethics advisor, that July, with no stated reason. One former Justice Department inspector general said publicly that the office has shown no evidence of any serious investigative activity in the face of highly publicized misconduct allegations.
Trump fired Bondi on April 2, 2026, one year to the day after the trade, and when she finally appeared before House Oversight on May 29 under threat of contempt, the interview concerned Epstein. Todd Blanche, the lawyer who defended Trump at his Manhattan criminal trial, has run the department as acting attorney general since the firing. No one has questioned her under oath about the trade.
Stewart’s sale avoided $45,673 in losses; Raskin’s letter states that Bondi’s sale “appears to have saved her, at the very least, hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Stewart answered the investigators and went to prison over her answers.
Bondi never answered a single question, because the investigators answered to her.
The referral produced nothing, and the person it names ran the department it was sent to. That is the reason this piece exists, and it is the reason for the next section.
New York can charge this.
What this calls for is criminal action, not civil, and the Stewart case shows the government once treated a $45,673 trade as worth a criminal prosecution.
New York’s securities fraud statute, the Martin Act, criminalizes deception in the purchase or sale of securities within or from New York, and its misdemeanor provisions require no proof of intent at all; its felony provisions, class E felonies carrying up to four years, reach intentional schemes to defraud. Trump Media trades on Nasdaq, the New York-based exchange, and shares sold into the open market on April 2 went to buyers wherever the exchange matched them, New York included.
The Manhattan District Attorney can charge crimes committed in the county under New York’s own fraud statutes, and that office has already proven it will act where federal enforcement will not: it convicted Trump himself on 34 felony counts in May 2024. The Attorney General’s office enforces the Martin Act, maintains a standing Investor Protection Bureau that takes complaints from anyone, and filed a Martin Act insider trading suit against a former chief executive in early 2026, so the statute is in current use for exactly this conduct. New York’s statute of limitations on felonies gives prosecutors until 2030.
A state charge is beyond Trump’s reach. The Constitution grants the president the pardon power over offenses against the United States, and a New York crime is not one. The Department of Justice cannot dismiss a state indictment, cannot fire a state prosecutor, and cannot order a state grand jury to stand down. Bondi could try to remove a state case to federal court under the federal officer removal statute, and the statute covers only acts performed under color of federal office. Supremacy Clause immunity has the same requirement: a federal officer performing a federal duty. Selling personal stock is neither.
The trade was hers, not the government’s.
Any person who unlawfully interferes with a New York prosecution commits new New York crimes in the act, whatever office they occupy. Hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence, and obstructing governmental administration are all New York offenses, all chargeable by the same state prosecutors, and all equally outside the pardon power. A federal official who conceals records from a Manhattan grand jury or pressures a witness in a state case has stepped outside the protections federal office provides. The same doctrine that strips Bondi of immunity for a personal stock trade strips her protectors of immunity for obstruction.
New York can charge them too.
To say the obvious once: the federal government has done nothing, and it will do nothing, and this article is not about that. Some readers will answer that the remedy is the next election.
You don’t restore justice by waiting for the next election’s results; you don’t restore justice as a prosecutor by saying “not my job”; you don’t restore justice with civil litigation over openly criminal activity. You restore justice by putting corrupt bastards in handcuffs.
A country where the attorney general can face a formal insider trading referral, outlast the inspector general who received it, fire the ethics official advising her, and exit government without answering one question under oath is a country where accountability has stopped being a function of law. New York can restart it this year.
Two officials have that power today, and a third can support them publicly. Alvin Bragg is the Manhattan District Attorney. Letitia James is the Attorney General of New York. Kathy Hochul is the Governor, and her public support matters to both.
Bondi named them both first. The memo she signed on her first day as attorney general established a Weaponization Working Group and listed Bragg’s prosecution of Trump and James’s civil fraud case among its subjects, and her department went on to indict James on mortgage fraud charges, an indictment a court dismissed because the prosecutor who brought it was unlawfully appointed. The memo named one other prosecutor, Jack Smith, whose federal cases were already over; the administration had no way to end the state cases except through Bragg and James themselves.
Most of the country lives outside their jurisdictions, and this is a national issue anyway. Two prosecutors can reach what the federal government will not, and whether they use that power is now a question of whether enough people are watching to make the cost of doing nothing higher than the cost of acting.
Our country was founded by people who fought tyranny when it wasn’t their job. For James and Bragg, and for Hochul in part, it is the job. It is what they were hired to do.
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THE CALL TO ACTION
The federal government is captured by the people whose crimes are the problem, and that leaves one set of prosecutors in the country with the power to charge this. We all need New York to do its job, and no New York address is required to make that happen, because the pressure that moves a prosecutor is public and it comes from everywhere.
Here is the play. One question, asked by enough people in public that a newsroom has to cover it and a prosecutor has to answer it. Work down the ladder as far as you have time for. The first rung takes a minute.
STEP 1. COMMENT ON THEIR POSTS
Go to a recent post from either office below and leave your question in the comments, where their followers will see it. If you have no audience of your own, a comment borrows theirs. Ask why no New York prosecutor has opened an investigation into Pam Bondi’s insider trading. Here is a starting point. Change the wording so it sounds like you, because a hundred identical comments read as a script and a hundred different ones read as a public:
“Pam Bondi sold up to $5.5 million in Trump Media stock the day of Trump’s tariffs. A congressman referred it as insider trading. Why has no New York prosecutor opened a case?”
STEP 2. TAKE IT TO THE PRESS
Comment the same question on a recent post from a news outlet, or tag a few in your comment on the prosecutor’s post. Pick the ones you would actually read; a short, real comment travels further than a wall of tags:
STEP 3. BRING IN THE PEOPLE WHO ANSWER TO VOTERS
Same question, same way, to the state party, and to your own representatives by name if they represent you:
Your representatives: nyassembly.gov and nysenate.gov
STEP 4. POST YOUR OWN, AND POST IT WIDE
If you have any following of your own, write the question as your own post, not just a comment, so it reaches the people who follow you. Put it on Bluesky, Facebook, Threads, or LinkedIn too. A question in five places reaches people who never saw it in one.
STEP 5. IF YOU LIVE IN NEW YORK, CALL
Call the Manhattan District Attorney at 212-335-9000 and ask the office to open a criminal inquiry into the April 2, 2025 sale. A call from a constituent carries a weight a comment does not. Cover these points in your own words:
That Pam Bondi sold as much as $5.5 million in Trump Media securities on April 2, 2025, the day of the tariff announcement.
That the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee referred her for an insider trading investigation and no investigation has been disclosed.
That her broker’s execution records, which would resolve the question, are available by subpoena.
That the Martin Act covers securities fraud within or from New York, and no federal official can pardon or quash a state case.
Ask for one thing: open the criminal inquiry.
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THE EXISTENTIALIST REPUBLIC FACT CHECK
This publication states below the claims in this article a skeptical reader would contest, the source for each, and what the record does not establish. A claim is marked established when a primary source or on-the-record reporting confirms it, inference when it is a conclusion this publication draws from established facts and labels as its own, and open when the public record does not yet resolve it.
Bondi sold as much as $5.5 million in Trump Media securities on April 2, 2025.
Established. Her government transaction report, obtained by ProPublica, shows a sale that day of between $1 million and $5 million in shares plus between $250,000 and $500,000 in warrants. Raskin’s referral letter states the combined figure as “between $1.25 million and $5.5 million worth of shares and other securities.” The article uses the top of that range and says “as much as,” which is the ceiling, not the confirmed figure.
The sale came hours before the tariff announcement.
Established as to the day, open as to the hour. The disclosure records the date, April 2, and not the time. Trump announced the tariffs that evening, after the market closed. ProPublica states that the disclosure does not show whether she sold before or after the close. The article says “hours later” and “the day,” which the record supports; it does not claim to know the minute she sold, and the piece’s central point is that a subpoena of her broker’s records would establish it.
Nothing required a sale on April 2.
Established as to the deadline, and the deadline is the defense: her ethics agreement required divestment within 90 days of her February 4, 2025 confirmation, so she had to sell by early May. The agreement set a deadline, not a date. Any trading day before early May satisfied it, and the day she chose was the day of the tariff announcement. The record contains nothing that compelled that choice of day.
The article calls the trade insider trading.
The characterization is Raskin’s and this publication’s, and no court has ruled on it. Representative Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, referred Bondi to the Justice Department inspector general on May 20, 2025, writing: “This conduct bears all the hallmarks of insider trading and demands impartial investigation.” The headline’s “implicated” rests on that formal referral; a referral is an accusation joined to a request for investigation, not a finding.
The article cites a twenty-year federal penalty while asking for a state charge that carries four.
Established, as a statement of federal law. Section 32(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, sets a maximum of twenty years imprisonment per violation for individuals. That is the federal ceiling. The state charge this article calls for, under New York’s Martin Act, is a class E felony carrying up to four years. Both numbers are accurate for their own forum, and the article states the federal figure where it names the offense and the state figure where it makes the New York case.
Whether this trade could be prosecuted.
A skeptical reader’s case centers on this question, so this item states that case in full, then answers it.
The case against prosecution: a federal insider trading conviction requires proof of scienter, a culpable state of mind, beyond a reasonable doubt. The public record does not show that Bondi possessed material nonpublic information about the tariffs before she sold, Trump had promised tariffs during the campaign, and federal courts have narrowed what qualifies as illegal insider trading in recent years. ProPublica noted these limits in its report. That is the case against prosecution at full strength.
The answer comes in two parts, because the skeptic’s case mixes a fact question with a law question. On the fact question, her office is itself evidence of likely access. The sitting Attorney General is a cabinet officer of the administration that announced the tariffs, which places her inside the set of people positioned to know in advance, and Raskin’s referral rests on exactly that: she “may have known the details and timing of the President’s announcement in advance.” The absence of proof reflects an absence of investigation, not an exculpatory record; the records that would show what she knew are available by subpoena, and no one with subpoena power has sought them, which is the article’s complaint, not its weakness. On the law question, the scienter burden and the judicial narrowing concern the federal statute, and the article does not ask for a federal prosecution. It asks New York to act, and New York’s Martin Act is a different statute enforced by a different sovereign. A New York court held in People v. Barysh that “no intent to defraud is required for a violation of the [Martin Act],” and the federal narrowing was done by federal courts interpreting federal law; it does not bind a New York prosecutor charging under state law. The New York Attorney General filed a Martin Act insider trading suit against a former chief executive in early 2026, so the office already applies this statute to insider trading, and the law firm alert analyzing that suit notes the no-intent holding “has not been tested in the specific context of insider trading.” A defendant would raise that argument, and it would be litigated. The article’s claims survive it: the timing is suspicious enough to justify a serious inquiry, the records that would resolve the question exist, and New York has its own statute and its own prosecutors. The article asks for the inquiry, not the verdict.
New York can charge this regardless of any federal pardon.
Established as to authority, with the outcome of any case unknowable in advance. A president’s pardon power reaches only federal offenses. The Martin Act criminalizes securities fraud within or from New York, its felony provisions carry up to four years, and Trump Media trades on a New York exchange, which grounds a New York case over the April 2 sale. Whether a prosecutor could win a case and whether one has the power to bring it are separate questions; the article claims the power.
The federal government has not investigated.
Established as to the public record, which is the form the article states it in: no investigation has been disclosed. The inspector general who received the referral, Michael Horowitz, left the department five weeks later. Bondi fired the department’s ethics director that July. A former Justice Department inspector general said publicly that the office showed no evidence of serious investigative activity in the face of highly publicized misconduct allegations. An undisclosed investigation would be invisible by definition; the checkable claim is that fourteen months produced no disclosed action, and that claim stands. The article’s forward claim, that the federal government will do nothing, is this publication’s inference and is labeled as one.
The article reads Bondi’s first-day memo as an incentive for New York’s silence.
Established as to the memo, inference as to the incentive. The memo establishing the Weaponization Working Group listed Bragg’s prosecution of Trump and James’s civil fraud case among its subjects, per CNN’s reporting. The department later indicted James on mortgage fraud charges, and a court dismissed that indictment because the prosecutor who brought it was unlawfully appointed. The article reads that history as an incentive for New York prosecutors to avoid the administration’s attention; that reading is this publication’s inference from the established record, and it is labeled as one.
Christopher Armitage is the founder and publisher of The Existentialist Republic.
The first of many, we hope, to be made accountable...this could open the floodgates?
I live in New York so I’ll be making the call this afternoon from Ukraine. Because the fight for democracy and against tyranny and corruption knows no borders.