Insider has identified more than a dozen members of Congress who’ve broke federal disclosure rules.
Republican Reps. August Pfluger and Steve Chabot and Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos are the latest.
STOCK Act violators face a modest fine, at minimum.
Members of Congress routinely trade stocks, buying and selling the shares of companies that often have significant business before the federal government — and sometimes spend a lot of money to lobby lawmakers.
Each week, Insider digs through congressional financial-disclosure records and asks lawmakers questions about their personal finances. Here are the latest highlights from what we’ve discovered.
Reps. August Pfluger, Cheri Bustos, and Steve Chabot violate STOCK Act
At least three more members of Congress appear to have violated the federal STOCK Act by disclosing their stock trades weeks or months late, according to an Insider analysis of federal records.
The total value of the trades fell between $10,007 and $150,000 — members of Congress are only required to disclose their stock trades within broad ranges — and include transactions involving shares of Bank of America Corp., Liberty Media Corporation, Wells Fargo, and the automotive company Stellantis N.V.
“My broker made a series of transactions to me and my wife’s Roth IRA accounts without my knowledge — which he is authorized to do, and has done for several years,” Pfluger told Insider in an email. “As soon as I learned of these transactions I filed the necessary paperwork and have put measures in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
Pfluger did not respond to follow-up questions on the nature of the preventive measures he’d put in place or whether he had paid a late-filing fine.
According to her latest filings, Rep. Cheri Bustos, a Democrat of Illinois, sold up to $150,000 worth of stocks last March. That liquidation included dumping up to $50,000 worth of stock in the online retailer Amazon, the cyber services provider L3Harris Technologies Inc., and the payment hub Mastercard Inc., respectively.
Bustos’ communications director, Heather Sager, told Insider a financial professional had been handling Bustos’ portfolio during her tenure on Capitol Hill.
“All investment transactions while in office have been made by a financial manager on her behalf, and she has never had any direct control or knowledge of stock purchases or sales,” Sager said via email.
Once the trades came to light, Sager said Bustos took corrective action.
“The congresswoman filed the necessary paperwork and has already been in touch with House Ethics in order to ensure full compliance,” Sager wrote. “Even prior to the discovery of these particular transactions, the congresswoman had divested from individual stocks and had adjusted her financial holdings to ensure this does not happen in the future.”
Rep. Steve Chabot‘s latest financial disclosures show he exchanged up to $30,000 worth of stock in the pharmaceutical companies Allergan PLC and AbbVie Inc. last spring.
The Ohio Republican notes in the filing that Allergan was acquired by AbbVie in May 2020 but writes that he wasn’t aware of the transaction until pulling together records for the July 2021 report.
“The language in the filing speaks for itself,” a Chabot spokeswoman, Mackenzie Martinez, wrote when asked about the disposition of the automatic $200 penalty outlined in the disclosure form and whether her boss had contacted the Ethics Committee about the violation.
House lawmakers violate transparency provisions of the STOCK Act if they don’t formally and publicly disclose stock trades within 45 days of any transaction, including those made on their behalf by financial advisors. They have even less time — 30 days — to disclose any trade that they’re personally aware of, such as ones they make themselves. Congressional ethics officials review suspected missteps and can impose fines of $200.
Bustos, Chabot, and Pfluger join a growing roster of their congressional colleagues who appear to have violated the STOCK Act this year.
Former Rep. Harley Rouda, a Democrat of California who’s attempting a comeback, also failed to properly disclose stock trades.
Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat from Florida, disputes that she violated the STOCK Act’s disclosure provision.
Toya Sarno Jordan/Getty Images
Did Lois Frankel also violate the STOCK Act?
It also appears that Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat from Florida, may have been a few days late disclosing some of her stock trades from June, including those involving shares of Duke Energy Corporation, the Clorox Company, and CDK Global Inc.
Frankel, who employs a financial advisor to make trades on her behalf, reported becoming aware of these stock trades on either June 26 or June 30. She submitted to House officials a certified disclosure report revealing the trades on August 3.
The STOCK Act gives lawmakers 30 days to disclose a stock trade after they become aware of it. Guidance provided by the US House Committee on Ethics offers this hypothetical: “Your broker purchases Mega Corporation stock on July 9 and informs you of the transaction on July 15. You must report that transaction by August 14.”
“The law is that it’s 30 days after notification,” said Kedric Payne, the general counsel and senior director of ethics of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center who previously served as deputy chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics.
But Frankel’s office disputes this interpretation of the STOCK Act’s disclosure provision, which states that members of Congress have 45 days overall — regardless of when they become aware of any trade made on their behalf — to file a stock-trade disclosure report.
“We have complied with the letter of the law since I came to Congress more than eight years ago,” Joshua Cohen, Frankel’s chief of staff, told Insider. “We submit all financial transactions within 45 days of the transaction, as advised by the Committee on Ethics.”
They include $1,001 to $15,000 worth of shares each in the biopharmaceutical company Amgen Inc., Costco Wholesale Corporation, Intel Corporation, the food company Nestlé SA, the computing and technology company Nvidia Corporation, and Visa Inc.
Last year, Costco stopped selling Palmetto Cheese at dozens of its locations after the cheese company’s owner referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as a “terrorist organization.” Greene, who now invests in Costco, earlier this year said the Black Lives Matter movement was “the strongest terrorist threat in our county.”
In June, Greene invested some of her money in Walmart, which is notable given the company’s stance supporting the Black Lives Matter movement — a stance that stands in stark contrast with Greene’s.
President Donald Trump being greeted by Reps. Trey Hollingsworth, left, and Jim Banks as he arrived at Indianapolis International Airport on October 27, 2018.
Andrew Harnik/AP
Trey Hollingsworth, hitting the gas
Rep. Trey Hollingsworth, a Republican from Indiana who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, has diversified his portfolio over the past 12 months.
Magellan dominated Hollingsworth’s stockpiling for several months. He bought up to $1.5 million in shares this July, up to $250,000 in May, up to $250,000 at the end of April, up to $200,000 a few weeks before that, and up to $1.2 million during the second week of March.
He appears to have pumped the brakes on Enterprise shortly after the new year, buying up to $350,000 worth of its stock in late January. Before that there was up to $100,000 invested in September 2020, up to $1.5 million bought and sold in August 2020, and up to $2.5 million bought in July 2020.
Hollingsworth’s staff did not reply to a request for comment about what prompted the energy-focused splurge.
Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican of South Carolina (center, raising hand), earned tens of thousands of dollars in royalties from a book he recently wrote.
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Reading pays for Tim Scott
Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina who may have presidential ambitions, earned $85,000 in book royalties during 2020, according to his newly filed annual financial-disclosure report.
That amounts to about half of his annual Senate salary.
The royalties stem from Scott’s book, “Opportunity Knocks: The Story of How Hope and Opportunity Can Change Everything,” published last year by Hachette.
Virginia Foxx buys tobacco, pharma, energy, and real estate
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, added four stocks to her portfolio: the tobacco company Altria Group Inc., the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, the real-estate company One Liberty Properties Inc., and the energy company PPL Corporation.
Foxx valued each of the purchases at $1,001 to $15,000.
The biopharmaceutical company produces a range of products and treatments, including those related to COVID-19.
For Jeanne Shaheen, nothing to see hair
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen‘s husband, Billy Shaheen, boasts numerous real-estate and business interests in their home state of New Hampshire.
But the three-term Democrat’s spouse appears to have ditched his stake in a small beauty salon based in Dover, New Hampshire, according to Shaheen’s newly filed annual financial-disclosure report.
