A recent New York Times investigation found that over 90 members of Congress or their family members bought or sold financial assets related to industries that they oversaw in Congress. They found there was a conflict of interest in at least 3,700 trades by lawmakers or their family from 2019 to 2021.
A detailed Twitter thread by a financial watchdog account dove more deeply into the trades. According to the thread, 49 Democrats and 44 Republicans sat on committees that directly oversaw companies they traded. It also gave examples of how Congressmembers bought or sold stocks of specific companies directly before their committee was going to issue a report that painted the company in either a positive or negative light.
For example, the wife of Democratic Congressman Alan Lowenthal of California made a 780% return on investments between 2019-2020 for the solar company Sunrun, which her husband oversees on the House Natural Resources Committee. In another example, Republican Congressman John Rose of Tennessee sold $250,000 worth of his Wells Fargo shares in November 2019 before his committee published a report critical of the bank, causing the company’s shares to drop 30%.
This report did not even discuss Nancy Pelosi, who has made 35 trades worth millions of dollars on companies such as the software giant Nvidia, which benefits from recent bills such as the CHIPS Act designed to promote more domestic semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S.
All Congresspeople implicated in the report have defended their trades, saying they were not improper. Who do they think they are kidding? This is simply legalized corruption.
This is yet another example of how the game is rigged by and for the elites, who run the system in their own interest and at our expense.
