The Iran ceasefire expires Wednesday. Four members of Congress who receive classified briefings on the war hold millions in defense contractor stocks. Those stocks surge every time peace fails.

This is not speculation. The trades are filed. The briefings are logged. The gains are public.

The Trades

On December 29, 2025, Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican from Oklahoma, purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 in RTX stock. RTX makes the missiles. Five days later, the United States struck Venezuela. Mullin sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He receives classified briefings on military operations.

His office says the trades are handled by a third-party firm. “He does not conduct nor inform trades.” He has bought and sold $24.25 million in stocks since 2023 across 501 trades. Forty percent of his December purchases aligned with sectors his committees oversee. His net worth is between $23.7 million and $100.2 million.

He does not inform trades.

Representative Gil Cisneros, Democrat from California, sits on the House Armed Services Committee. Subcommittees: Intelligence and Special Operations. Seapower and Projection Forces. Since September 2025, he has accumulated nine defense contractor positions. General Dynamics. RTX. Boeing. Lockheed Martin. Honeywell. Palantir. On December 15, he purchased AeroVironment, the drone manufacturer. The stock rose 54 percent in one month.

His spokesperson said the trades are managed by “outside financial advisors who have a fiduciary responsibility to maintain a diverse portfolio.”

Representative Michael McCaul, Republican from Texas, chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has classified briefing access on Iran. In January 2025, he bought GE Aerospace stock worth $50,000 to $75,000. It is up 82 percent. In March 2025, he bought Woodward Incorporated, which makes precision controls for military aircraft. It is up 114 percent.

McCaul traded $57.7 million in stocks in 2025 alone. One thousand and eight trades. His career total is $514.65 million across 4,645 trades and 504 different companies.

He has made no public statement about his defense stock positions.

Senator Ashley Moody, Republican from Florida, purchased Howmet Aerospace in January 2025. Between $50,000 and $100,000. A second purchase in April 2025. Between $15,000 and $50,000. Howmet makes structural components for fighter jets and military aircraft. The first purchase is up 107 percent. The second is up 133 percent.

The Defense

Every office gave the same answer. Third-party advisor. Fiduciary responsibility. Diverse portfolio. Independent firm.

Mullin’s spokesperson: “He does not conduct nor inform trades.”

Cisneros’s spokesperson: “The Congressman and his wife do not manage the day-to-day trading of their investments.”

It is the same statement. Word for word across parties. The same PR firm template. The same assumption that the disclosure is the accountability.

The disclosure costs $200. Late filing. That is the penalty under the STOCK Act. It is routinely waived by the ethics committees. No member of Congress has ever been prosecuted for insider trading under the STOCK Act. Not one. The law was written by the people it governs.

The Math

On February 28, 2026, Operation Epic Fury launched. Joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. On the first trading day after, March 2, Northrop Grumman rose 6 percent. Lockheed Martin rose 3.5 percent. RTX rose 4.7 percent.

Since the June 2025 strikes that started the war, Lockheed Martin is up 40 percent. Northrop Grumman is up 46 percent. Cisneros’s spring 2025 positions gained 38 to 53 percent. McCaul’s GE Aerospace is up 82 percent. Moody’s Howmet is up 133 percent.

The ceasefire expires Wednesday. No deal is in sight. West Texas Intermediate crude jumped 6 percent to $89 a barrel on Monday. Brent surged to $95.50.

If the ceasefire fails, every one of these portfolios climbs again. These members sit in the rooms where the decisions are made. They hold the stocks that benefit from those decisions. The filings are public. The math is public. The silence is bipartisan.

Burn Notice

On December 2, 2024, I was arrested at the Cannon House Office Building. I know what those hallways look like. I have walked the same corridors where Armed Services Committee members walk from their classified briefings back to their offices.

The difference is what happens next. I walked out in handcuffs. They walk out and call their brokers. The building is the same. The rules are not.

The Pattern

In 2021, the New York Times investigated 97 members of Congress who made more than 3,700 trades that intersected with their committee work. Twenty-five sat on defense committees while trading conflicting assets.

That investigation covered trades with gains of 5 to 15 percent. The Iran war produced gains of 50 to 133 percent. Same pattern. Ten times the scale. And the enforcement apparatus that might have responded has been gutted. Two DOJ Public Integrity lawyers. One CFTC commissioner. An SEC enforcement chief who quit because she was not allowed to do her job.

Representative Bryan Steil introduced the Stop Insider Trading Act on January 12, 2026. It advanced out of committee 7 to 4. It has not received a floor vote. The proposed penalty: $2,000 or 10 percent of the investment value, whichever is greater. McCaul traded $57.7 million last year. He will not vote for this bill.

The Verdict

Four members of Congress. Four portfolios positioned for war. Four offices that gave the same answer: the advisor did it. Four STOCK Act filings that prove the trades happened. Zero prosecutions in the history of the law.

The ceasefire expires Wednesday. If it fails, the stocks go up. If it holds, they keep the gains. There is no version of this where they lose.

That is not investing. That is a position.

Friendly Fire

Not everything that burns smells like the other party.

At 2:00 PM today, the House Ethics Committee holds the expulsion hearing for Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Democrat from Florida. Twenty-seven ethics violations. Five million dollars in diverted FEMA funds. Democrats are expected to vote to expel one of their own.

They will expel for theft. They will not expel for trades.

Cisneros sits on the Armed Services Committee with nine defense contractor positions. No hearing. No investigation. No expulsion proceeding. The difference between Cherfilus-McCormick and Cisneros is not the money. It is the paperwork. She forgot to file. He filed on time. Both kept the money.

Five Stories Worth Your Time

1. DOJ Declares Presidential Records Act Unconstitutional. The Office of Legal Counsel issued the Gaiser memo declaring the 1978 Presidential Records Act beyond Congress’s authority. The American Historical Association and American Oversight filed suit today. The implication: Trump can destroy or keep any presidential record he wants. The Watergate-era guardrail is dead.

2. Kash Patel Sues The Atlantic for $250 Million. The FBI Director filed a defamation suit against The Atlantic and reporter Barton Gellman. The chilling effect is the point. National security reporters are now calculating whether the story is worth the legal bill.

3. The Ceasefire Clock. The two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire, mediated by Pakistan, expires Wednesday. Trump posted that he would destroy “every single Power Plant and every single Bridge in Iran.” Tehran says no decision on whether to attend further talks. Oil is surging. Defense stocks are positioned.

4. FEC Files ‘Notice of Lack of Quorum.’ On April 6, the Federal Election Commission told a federal court it cannot function. Not enough commissioners. The agency that polices campaign finance cannot hold a vote. The cops are not on vacation. The precinct is closed.

5. Warren Demands SEC Probe of Hegseth Defense Investments. Senators Warren, Blumenthal, Duckworth, Peters, and Merkley sent a letter to the SEC demanding an investigation into reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock about a multimillion-dollar defense ETF investment before the Iran war began. The Pentagon called the report “entirely false and fabricated.”

Quote of the Day

“He does not conduct nor inform trades.” — Spokesperson for Senator Markwayne Mullin, who has bought and sold $24.25 million in stocks since 2023 across 501 trades, forty percent of which aligned with sectors his committees oversee.

What does “inform” mean when you sit in the briefing room?

Next in BTP: The Pharma Senator. A Democratic senator sold pharmaceutical holdings weeks before a committee vote on drug pricing. The stocks declined after the vote. The senator’s portfolio did not participate in the decline. The dates are on the record.