Teleprompter operator made more than $100K betting on Trump's speeches: Sources

Gabriel Perez is in settlement talks with federal regulators, the sources said.

When President Donald Trump approached the podium to deliver his State of the Union address in February, one of the few people who knew what he was about to say was allegedly setting himself up to profit from the president's words.

Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on that speech and more than a dozen others on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president who has been operating Trump's teleprompter since 2016, is in talks with federal regulators to settle allegations he used his inside knowledge of the president's speeches to win more than $100,000, the sources said.

According to the sources, Kalshi alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to the suspicious activity on its "Mentions" market, where users can bet on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech.

"Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators," Kalshi's lead lawyer, Bobby DeNault, said in a statement provided to ABC News.

"The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow," said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle when contacted by ABC News. "The staffer in question is fully cooperating with the CFTC."

In addition to the State of the Union, sources said CFTC investigators discovered that Perez placed bets on more than a dozen Trump speeches over a three-month period, including a December primetime address, a January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Trump's remarks in March during a Medal of Honor ceremony.

Later in March, the White House issued an internal memo warning staff against using nonpublic information to place bets on prediction markets, sources previously confirmed to ABC News.

Perez continues to serve as one of Trump's teleprompter operators -- a role he has served since Trump's first presidential campaign.

Of all Trump's closest aides, sources say Perez typically has the final eyes on nearly all of the president's prepared remarks -- and is often known to take last-minute edits from Trump himself. He previously came under scrutiny by congressional and federal investigators over the edits that were made prior to the delivery of Trump's remarks