Here we are again, talking about Nancy Pelsoi and her 1972 Miami Dolphins-like run. That is to say, nobody defeats Nancy Pelosi on Wall Street —and it’s not hard to understand why.
One month before the Department of Justice opened an antitrust lawsuit on Google parent company Alphabet, former House Speaker and current Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sold 30,000 shares of the now-embattled technology firm.
Here’s Attorney General Merrick Garland on the investigation…
“Today’s complaint alleges that Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press release. “The Justice Department will vigorously enforce our antitrust laws to protect consumers, safeguard competition, and ensure economic fairness and opportunity for all.”
Shares of Alphabet fell nearly 2% on the announcement —but Pelosi didn’t take the hit.
As previously reported by The Drill Down, It’s been ten years since the 112th Congress enacted the STOCK Act —and if they hadn’t gutted the bill, stories like these may not be so commonplace.
As a quick reminder, the STOCK Act was signed into law in 2012 with substantial bipartisan support following the release of the Government Accountability Institute president Peter Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out. Schweizer’s book uncovered an epidemic of lawmakers, from both parties, leveraging knowledge acquired while in office to make insider stock trades.
While Pelosi and many other members of Congress have enriched themselves on the Hill using privileged information, that may be coming to end thanks to a new bill introduced by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO).
Aptly named the PELOSI Act.
“Members of Congress and their spouses shouldn’t be using their position to get rich on the stock market – today l’m introducing legislation to BAN stock trading & ownership by members of Congress. I call it the PELOSI Act,” Hawley wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
Hawley’s bill would require any profits made by a lawmaker to be returned to American taxpayers. It also specifically amends the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which prohibits using nonpublic information for private profit, commonly known as insider trading — which is already illegal for business leaders and everyday Americans.
Maybe Ms. Pelosi’s hot streak is ending.
