Lawmakers and their spouses would be prohibited from using privileged information to trade stocks, under legislation introduced Tuesday by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. Hawley’s bill follows news last year that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, traded between $1 million and $5 million worth of semiconductor stocks shortly before Congress allocated $52 million to the industry.
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Incumbent U.S. Representative Tom Malinowski (D-NJ-07) appears to have financially benefited from exceptional timing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Hill reported in 2021 that Malinowski previously faced two ethics complaints about his failure to report “trading roughly $1 million in stock in medical companies that were involved in responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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After House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) proposed possible new legislation to limit the practice of insider stock trading among members of Congress, even some within his own ranks have anonymously voiced their opposition to such a plan.
As reported by the New York Post, McCarthy first made the suggestion to Punchbowl News, suggesting such a bill as one of many things he would want to see introduced if the GOP retakes the majority in November. Among other things, his proposal would restrict members to only holding professionally managed funds, as well as prohibit lawmakers from owning stocks in companies that are overseen by committees they serve on.
McCarthy pointed to the example of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has a net worth of over $100 million, and whose husband was found to have traded millions more worth of tech stocks. “I just think if you’re the Speaker of the House, you control what comes to the floor, what goes through committee, you have all the power to do everything you want,” McCarthy said on Tuesday. “You can’t be trading millions of dollars.”
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A day after his cellphone was seized by federal agents as part of an FBI investigation into insider trading, North Carolina U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is leaving his position as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“Senator Burr contacted me this morning to inform me of his decision to step aside as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the pendency of the investigation,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said in a statement. “We agreed that this decision would be in the best interests of the committee and will be effective at the end of the day tomorrow.”
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Almost 50 members of Congress, between both houses, made thousands of stock exchanges during the coronavirus outbreak in an effort to capitalize on the economic turmoil, according to a report by Politico.
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The Justice Department is probing a series of stock trades that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) made in the weeks after receiving briefings about the coronavirus pandemic, CNN reported.
The Justice Department is coordinating with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the matter, and the FBI has contacted Barr, a North Carolina Republican, according to CNN, which cited two people familiar with the matter.
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Four-term Republican Rep. Chris Collins of New York submitted his resignation from Congress Monday, one day before he’s expected to plead guilty to charges of insider trading.
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