Eight Democratic United States Senators have called on agency heads to investigate Carl Icahn, a billionaire investor who is also one of President Donald Trump's closest advisers, on alleged insider trading.
In a press release sent by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, she and seven other senators urge a multiagency investigation into Icahn, including Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tom Carper of Delaware, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The agencies they call upon to engage in an Icahn investigation are the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The Democratic legislators claimed that CVR Energy, a company of which Icahn is majority owner, "bet heavily in 2016 on a drop in the price of renewable fuel credits, which ultimately resulted in a $50 million windfall for the company." They cited press reports which describe Icahn using his influence as a policy adviser to Trump in order to drive down the price of renewable fuel credits. These included recommending the selection of Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA (Pruitt is opposed to the renewable fuel credits program), as well as proposing alterations to the renewable fuel credit program itself that drove down prices.
"We have no way of knowing at this time whether Mr. Icahn made any of his renewable fuel credit trades or decisions about trades based on material, non-public information or otherwise manipulated the market," the senators wrote. "But the publicly available evidence is troubling, and based on this evidence, we ask that your agencies investigate whether Mr. Icahn's conduct violated any laws under your jurisdiction."
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