Democratic congressman likely violated stock disclosure law, experts say

EXCLUSIVE —A Democratic congressman appears to have skirted federal law by disclosing a stock trade well past the required deadline, according to experts.

Rep. Seth Moulton( D-MA ) told the House clerk on Wednesday that his wife Liz Boardman sold up to$ 100,000 worth of shares of Activision Blizzard, a significant video game publisher that Microsoft is interested in buying. However, Moulton likely violated the STOCK Act, which requires lawmakers to report trades worth at least$ 1,000 within 30 to 45 days of the transaction, because this sale was made all the way back in September 2022, according to two ethics experts.

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According to Kendra Arnold, senior director of the right-leaning guardian Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, the legislation requiring reporting is crucial because it is the only way to determine whether a member’s’s legal action was influenced by personal expenditures or if they were improperly profiting from their genuine position. There is no justification for false, imperfect, or late filings because users are well aware of their obligation to disclose.

The STOCK Act, which was passed in 2012, aims to stop Congressmen from engaging in inside betting. The Office of Congressional Ethics, which looks into misconduct allegations and may refer cases to the House Ethics Committee, voted in February 2022, has seen dozens of Republicans and Democrats fail to comply with the disclosure law over the years, including Rep. Pat Fallon( R-TX ), who failed to report up to$ 21 million in stock trades.

In the last few decades, politicians and their individual income have come under closer scrutiny. During a House Administration Committee hearing in March to ban or restrict member stock trading, Reps. Chip Roy( R – TX ), Abigail Spanberger( D – VA ), Pramila Jayapal, and Raja Krishnamoorthi renewed their push to do so.

Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi( D-CA ) supported legislation last year that would forbid trading between members of Congress and their spouses, senior congressional staff, executive branch members, and Supreme Court justices. Watchdogs asserted that the proposal, however, had a blind trust” hole” that would permit lawmakers to continue to be able to control their portfolios.

According to Craig Holman, a public affairs lawyer for the left-wing say container Public Citizen, Moulton, who took office in 2015, is clearly” violating” the STOCK Act.

He told the Washington Examiner that” the legislation is crucial for the prevention of parliamentary inside investing.” ” Contentious material information that may directly affect the economy and the stock market is available to members of Congress.”

The congressman has previously filed trades past the required federal timeframe, as evidenced by his Activision Blizzard publication. Records indicate that his wife purchased up to$ 15,000 worth of Amazon shares in August 2022, but he didn’t make the transaction public until late January 2023, more than five months later. The January report also revealed that in September 2022, Boardman sold up to$ 100,000 in shares of Activision Blizzard.

Similar to this, Moulton disclosed in August 2021 that Boardman had sold approximately$ 250 000 worth of non-public stock of Spencer Stuart Management Consultants supply six months earlier, in February of that year.

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Requests for comment were never answered by Moulton’s’s work or the Office of Congressional Ethics.

The government has no way to determine whether members are abiding by the law when they disregard that revelation requirement, Holman continued.