White House says teleprompter operator put on administrative leave after Kalshi/CFTC inquiry; reporters press for safeguards

Reporters at the briefing asked whether White House staff had access to prediction markets (Kalshi, Polymarket) and whether other employees were under investigation for trading on privileged information. Caroline said she had not personally tried accessing the White House Wi‑Fi for those platforms and promised to follow up on access questions.

On the central allegation, Caroline said Kalshi notified the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of suspicious activity; the CFTC investigated, identified an individual and that person "will now no longer be working at the White House." Caroline said the individual is on administrative leave and that the White House enforces "very strict ethical guidelines" and "people will pay consequences for that."

Reporters pressed whether White House counsel was aware of trading and whether internal mechanisms exist to detect such behavior; Caroline said the counsel's office makes ethical rules clear to staffers and repeated that violations have consequences but declined to provide details on internal detection procedures. She said she was "not aware" of other staffers suspected of making such trades.

The briefing referenced the CFTC and Kalshi's notification as the investigatory path; the White House did not provide a public memorandum or a formal internal‑investigation timeline during the session. Questions about whether specific Wi‑Fi networks in the Executive Office had blocked access remained unanswered in the briefing; Caroline said she would seek an answer.

Next steps: Caroline said she would try to get an answer about system access and reiterated that the matter was referred to the CFTC; no further staffing or disciplinary documents were released during the briefing.