Even More Lawmakers Apparently Violate Stock-Trade Rules

Federal law requires members of Congress to report their securities transactions within 45 days, but at least 10 lawmakers have recently missed that deadline, with some waiting more than a year to disclose their trades.  

Four of those late filings have not been previously reported. 

On June 30, Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) disclosed three stock sales totaling at least $45,000 that took place 17 months ago. Bustos sits on the House Appropriations panel’s subcommittee on defense; two of the stocks she sold were for defense contractors, Amazon and L3Harris Technologies.

UPDATE Aug. 5, 4:10 p.m.: According to a spokesperson for Bustos, “These transactions were completed by an advisor—the Congresswoman was not made aware of them until just recently. Once notified, the Congresswoman filed the necessary paperwork. Even prior to the discovery of these particular transactions, the Congresswoman had adjusted her financial holdings to ensure this does not happen in the future.”

Rep. August Pfluger (R-Tex.) waited until Monday to disclose 12 stock transactions from January and March. “My broker made a series of transactions to my and my wife’s Roth IRA accounts without my knowledge—which he is authorized to do, and has done for several years,” Pfluger said in a statement. “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.”

Between May and July 2021, Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) reported 15 trades totaling more than $134,000 that he’d made in 2020, according to a transaction report he filed last week. The trades, which were in Joyce’s trust and a joint account with his wife, all involved mutual funds.

And on July 28, Joyce’s fellow Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Chabot disclosed two transactions from May 2020. Chabot wasn’t aware that biopharmaceutical company AbbVie’s acquisition of the Irish firm Allergan led to an exchange of stocks in his portfolio until last week, according to a note on the report he filed with the House clerk’s office.

Spokespeople for Bustos, Joyce, and Chabot did not reply to inquiries.

This batch of delinquent disclosures is just the latest in what appears to be a trend on Capitol Hill. In July, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) disclosed 132 stock trades that took place more than 45 days earlier. Last week, the Campaign Legal Center, a government watchdog, filed ethics complaints against Tuberville, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Tex.) and Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) for their late filings. Insider reported on Monday that three House Democrats—Lori Trahan (Mass.), Kathy Castor (Fla.), and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.)—waited more than 45 days to disclose securities transactions.