Google Employee Charged with Commodities Fraud; RT Highlights Double Standard with Politicians

The US Justice Department on Wednesday charged Google employee Michele Spagnuolo with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering after he used confidential corporate information to collect more than $1.2 million from bets on online prediction platform Polymarket. However, US law enforcement appears to apply a blatant double standard when it comes to politicians, RT’s Caleb Maupin reports. “Washington says that insider trading is illegal. You can’t have special information, and then get rich on Wall Street betting on it. That is, unless you’re the president of the United States,” Maupin says. “Then you can negotiate, start a war, appoint somebody, call for more military spending, negotiate the Strait of Hormuz to be opened or closed, and know what you’re going to do before you do it and make bets and make lots of money.” President Donald Trump made between $211 million to $750 million from securities trading in the first quarter of 2026, according to financial disclosures published by the US Office of Government Ethics earlier this month. The filings list the transactions in broad ranges rather than exact amounts, and include securities linked to corporate titans such as Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Palantir, and Boeing. While US government regulators assure Americans that they’re maintaining checks and balances, this seems to mean “fairness and order for average Joes or Google engineers, but not for everybody else,” Maupin says. Watch the full RT report below.