Journalist and political strategist Christopher Armitage publicly accused U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi of insider trading on Monday, alleging that she sold approximately $5.5 million in Trump Media & Technology Group securities in April 2025 — hours before President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs that caused the stock to plummet.

Bondi, who served as Florida Attorney General from 2011 to 2019 and was confirmed as U.S. Attorney General in early 2025, now leads the federal Justice Department that would normally be responsible for investigating such allegations. That institutional role places the nation's top federal law enforcement official at the center of accusations that, if proven, would constitute one of the most high-profile insider trading cases involving a sitting Cabinet member in modern history.

Trump Media & Technology Group, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol DJT, is the publicly traded parent company of Truth Social, the social media platform launched by Trump. The company's shares have experienced significant volatility tied to political developments and presidential policy announcements since going public via a SPAC merger in March 2024.

According to ProPublica, Armitage's allegations center on the timing of Bondi's securities sales, which reportedly occurred shortly before Trump's tariff declaration triggered a sharp decline in the company's share price. Despite more than 14 months having elapsed since the transactions in question, no insider trading case has been opened against Bondi at the federal level — a fact Armitage characterized as conspicuous given her current position atop the department that would pursue such charges.

In his analysis published on Substack, Armitage drew a direct comparison to the case of Martha Stewart, the media magnate who in 2004 was convicted of lying to federal investigators about a stock sale valued at approximately $45,673. Stewart, despite her wealth and public prominence, served five months in federal prison. By comparison, Bondi's alleged $5.5 million transaction is roughly 120 times larger than the sale that ultimately led to Stewart's conviction.

Armitage identified a key evidentiary gap: Bondi's financial disclosure forms omit critical details, including the precise time of the trades, the execution prices, and any non-public information Bondi may have possessed at the time of the sales.

"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," Armitage wrote.

He argued that obtaining broker execution records through a single federal subpoena would establish the timing and pricing of the trades, which in turn could serve as evidence of what Bondi knew prior to executing the sales. At the federal level, insider trading enforcement typically falls jointly to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which brings civil cases, and the Department of Justice, which pursues criminal prosecution.

Armitage also suggested that New York State prosecutors possess the authority to pursue charges independently, regardless of federal inaction. New York's Martin Act grants the state attorney general broad civil and criminal jurisdiction over securities fraud, and New York's criminal statutes do not carry presidential pardon power. "New York State can still charge this," he noted. "No pardon can stop it, no attorney general can quash it."

The allegations add to ongoing scrutiny of Bondi, a longtime Trump ally whose relationship with the former president has previously been examined in reporting by the Louisiana Illuminator.