Rep. Jamie Raskin Opens Investigation Into Howard Lutnick and His Former Firm’s Tariff Dealings

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has opened an investigation into potential conflicts of interest between Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his former firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, following the Supreme Court’s decision on the legality of President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs.

In a letter exclusively obtained by NOTUS and sent Friday to the commerce secretary and his son, Cantor Fitzgerald Chair Brandon Lutnick, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland pressed the Lutnicks on the firm’s alleged conflicts of interest.

“[W]hile you were championing these illegal tariffs and telling the American public to ‘rest assured, tariffs are not going away,’ your son Brandon Lutnick—as your immediate successor as chairman of your former firm Cantor Fitzgerald—was reportedly betting millions of dollars that they would be struck down by the courts,” Raskin wrote. “Now that the Supreme Court has finally rejected President Trump’s brazen and unlawful power grab, the firm reportedly stands to make extraordinary profits of millions of dollars at the expense of American taxpayers.”

“This arrangement raises significant ethical, legal, and policy questions that demand a full public accounting,” Raskin added.

The congressman’s letter asked for all communications and documents between the commerce secretary and any representative of Cantor Fitzgerald, along with all internal analyses and legal opinions on Trump’s tariff policy, by March 9.

Before being appointed to Trump’s Cabinet, Howard Lutnick served as chair and CEO of the financial services firm. Though he resigned from his role upon assuming office, the company is now led in part by two of his sons.

Multiple Democrats have expressed concern about a conflict of interest.

And they are apparently not the only ones: Politico reported Thursday that Trump personally confronted Howard Lutnick at Mar-a-Largo in late December upon learning that the secretary’s family business saw a 25% revenue increase in 2025, to the tune of $2.5 billion.

As the minority party, Democrats’ oversight powers are limited. While minority members can send letters like the one Raskin has sent the Lutnicks, minority members cannot unilaterally initiate hearings or issue subpoenas.

But Democrats have a chance to retake the House in the 2026 midterms. And if they win the majority, they are expected to ramp up oversight authority actions, including investigations targeting Trump and his inner circle.

Neither the Department of Commerce nor Cantor Fitzgerald immediately responded to a request for comment on the new investigation.

In the letter, Raskin referenced a report by Wired detailing how Cantor Fitzgerald offered to purchase importers’ tariff refund claims at a significant discount, providing cash in exchange for the right to collect the full value of the refund if the Supreme Court invalidated the tariff policy. Wired reported that the company had completed at least one such trade worth $10 million.

Considering Cantor Fitzgerald’s negotiations came at the same time the company’s former chair, Howard Lutnick, served as the “architect” of Trump’s tariff policy, concerns about insider trading have arisen.

“You participated in the losing strategy of bypassing Congress to unilaterally impose these tariffs and thus have an insider’s view of the tariffs’ profound legal vulnerability, the Administration’s weak litigation hand, and the prospects that the tariffs would be struck down—extraordinarily valuable and material nonpublic information to anyone betting against the tariffs’ legality and seeking to profit from their invalidation,” Raskin wrote. “That potential conflict of interest raises some troubling questions of federal ethics and insider trading.”

Cantor Fitzgerald denied Wired’s reporting in a statement to Newsweek and wrote that it had “never executed any transactions or taken risk on the legality of tariffs.”

Raskin said, in the letter, that this denial “compounded the public concern.”

On Feb. 20, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the president does not have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Trump, over the weekend, posted on Truth Social that the ruling was a “ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision” before announcing additional temporary tariffs.

Just hours after the decision was released, Trump announced that he would press ahead with an alternative 10% global tariff, this time justified under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.