Insider trading by esteemed member of congress

https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas...e-perfect-time-to-buy-and-not-disclose-stocks

Rep. Dan Crenshaw Decided Pandemic Was Perfect Time to Buy and Not Disclose Stocks

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) did not buy or sell any stocks in his first 13 months as a congressman. That changed in March 2020, when he made half a dozen buys as the largest economic relief package in history was written and debated.

Five of those purchases came in the three days between March 25 and 27, as the Senate and House voted on the CARES Act and former President Trump signed it into law. Crenshaw, who supported the bill, did not initially disclose the transactions, in violation of the STOCK Act, a law that requires members of Congress to tell the public when they engage in securities trades. Months later he amended his records to reflect the purchases.

The trades, which are listed only in a range of values, add up to a maximum of $90,000, and do not compare in size or volume to the kinds of headline-grabbing transactions executed ahead of the pandemic by Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. They only appeared in December, when Crenshaw amended his annual report, originally submitted in August.

“You’re referencing financial disclosures that use a range to report stock purchases, and you’re choosing the upper end of the range to come up with that [$90,000] figure,” Justin Discigil, Crenshaw’s communications director, told the Daily Beast in an email. “The real number is around $30,000 at most,” Discigil said, and “in no way were his purchases unethical or related to official business.”

The timing, however, along with Crenshaw’s own trading history and connections to the industry, raises questions about why he made the purchases and failed, twice, to disclose them.

“Members of Congress should not be actively trading securities in the middle of a crisis. It shows that when the market crashes, that person is thinking about themselves and using the volatility to their own advantage,” said Ben Edwards, a securities law expert and professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Las Vegas Nevada. “We all have a limited amount of attention, and if you’ve got [an] eye on your stock portfolio, then you’re not giving that crisis or the American people the full attention they demand.”

Crenshaw, elected in 2018, had never traded individual stocks in office until that crisis struck, according to public records. Then, when global markets crashed on March 12, Crenshaw bought between $1,001 and $15,000 in Amazon. Two weeks later, while Congress voted on the CARES Act, Crenshaw bought stocks valued at the same price range in Southwest, Boeing, energy infrastructure manfacturer SPX, and Kinder Morgan, a Texas-based company specializing in pipeline construction. He also bought into an index fund tied to the performance of the S&P 500.

Crenshaw’s name did not make it into those media reports, however, because he hadn’t disclosed his purchases. The STOCK Act, a 2012 law intended to deter federal elected officials from trading on inside knowledge, requires congress to post all transactions within 45 days. Not only did Crenshaw fail to disclose the transactions at the time, he didn’t include them in his annual disclosure, filed in August. And while that filing shows that Crenshaw holds the new assets, the form also requires members to list the transactions, including the dates, which Crenshaw left blank. They only appeared when the Lone Star Republican filed an amended annual report in December.

Crenshaw’s spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the Harvard alum and former Navy SEAL had filed that amendment “to fix clerical issues in his report like making sure dates were correct.”

At the time, Crenshaw sat on the House committees for Budget and Homeland Security. Boeing in particular lobbied heavily, and successfully, for a piece of the CARES Act, asking at first for $60 billion and later hoping to receive a $17 billion slice that lawmakers set aside for “businesses critical to maintaining national security.” The nonpartisan Institute on Tax and Economic Policy said at the time that it was “generally understood that the bill’s authors want much, if not all, of this $17 billion to go to a single company: Boeing.” But in late April, the manufacturer passed on the deal, opting instead to raise $25 billion in private investment thanks to moves that the Federal Reserve made independently of the CARES Act. The day that Crenshaw bought Boeing, markets snapped their brief positive burst, and the company led the boards that day in losses. His investment has now grown more than 38%. Boeing’s employee PAC gave $3,000 to Crenshaw’s 2020 campaign.

All of Crenshaw’s purchases have shown returns, with the biggest yields from Boeing, Amazon and Southwest Airlines. Amazon bounced up from about $1,820 a share on March 12 to $2,979 today, and Southwest Airlines rose from around $41 to a little over $60.

 
This has been going on for years, for centuries in countries all around the world. It's one of the perks of being a politician in high places. The amazing thing is you even get away with it if you are a politician. If you are Martha Stewart, you do insider trading, you go to jail. But if you are Hilary Clinton or a member of her family, you do insider trading, you just carry on and nothing happens to you. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/...se-hillary-insider-trading-on-greek-bailouts/
 
JSOP said:
This has been going on for years, for centuries in countries all around the world. It's one of the perks of being a politician in high places. The amazing thing is you even get away with it if you are a politician. If you are Martha Stewart, you do insider trading, you go to jail. But if you are Hilary Clinton or a member of her family, you do insider trading, you just carry on and nothing happens to you. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/...se-hillary-insider-trading-on-greek-bailouts/
More...


Martha Stewart was never convicted of insider trading.
https://www.thoughtco.com/martha-stewarts-insider-trading-case-1146196
 
https://www.reformaustin.org/texas-...erly-disclose-millions-worth-of-stock-trades/
Texas US Rep. Pat Fallon Failed To Properly Disclose Millions Worth of Stock Trades

An in-depth report of newly filed congressional records by Business Insider recently revealed that GOP Rep. Pat Fallon failed to properly disclose dozens of stock trades together worth at least $7.8 million — and as much as $17.53 million.

Fallon, a Republican Freshman from Texas and former officer of the Air Force who later on founded an apparel company featuring military and patriotic designs, allegedly broke federal law which states that members of Congress have 30 days from when they become aware of a stock trade to formally disclose it in a certified report.

The Republican was up to four months late in some disclosures, with some others arriving about a month late, which could entitle him to an ethics investigation or fine regarding the 93 stock trades he made between mid-January and mid-April.

As reported by Business Insider, out of the 14 companies where Fallon bought and sold the shares in the first months of 2021, Boeing –the defense and contracting giant- is of particular note, since Fallon is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, in charge of overseeing the government’s relationship with defense contractors, frequently debating Boeing’s military aircraft and weapons systems.

“You’re overseeing an industry that you have an investment in. At a minimum, it raises the appearance that this member could be leveraging his insight and intel,” said Delaney Marsco, an ethics counsel at the Campaign Legal Center.

In spite of having taken required congressional ethics training where congressional financial-disclosure rules are routinely covered, Luke Ball, a Fallon spokesman, acknowledged that the House Armed Services Commissioner didn’t publicly disclose his stock trades on time, according to a statement provided to Insider.

Besides Boeing Co., Fallon bought and traded stocks from Amazon.com Inc., American Airlines Group Inc., Apple Inc., Applied Materials Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Chevron Corp., Facebook Inc., FedEx Corp., Microsoft Corp., PayPal Holdings Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and the Walt Disney Company.
 
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