In most cases, the lawmakers have not been accused of wrongdoing, but CLC says the frequency of such stock trades underscores the need for more transparency and ethics protections, particularly in a time of crisis.
Members of Congress are not held to the same ethics and disclosure requirements as members of the executive branch, but they must obey the 2012 STOCK Act, which prohibits trading on nonpublic information that they accessed in the course of their official duties for personal profit. Two GOP senators — Richard Burr of North Carolina and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia — have already faced accusations of improper trading, but maintain they did nothing wrong.
Burr, who leads the Intelligence Committee and is a member of the health committee, has insisted that he relied only on public information when selling off between $628,000 and $1.72 million in holdings in mid-February a week before the stock market plunged and after attending confidential briefings on the pandemic. Loeffler says her financial advisers make all the decisions for her and her husband’s stock portfolio. Her husband is CEO of the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange.
Still, the CLC believes the stock trades, even if not technically insider trading, create the appearance of a conflict of interest. They’re calling for new laws that would ban lawmakers from making individual stock trades altogether.
“Ground for suspicion remains as members of Congress buy and sell stock for their personal portfolios, while simultaneously picking winners and losers in the market as they craft economic stimulus packages,” the group wrote.
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
Source: politico.com
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