Ian Haworth: Insider Trading in Congress

In the second episode of my new show, “Off Limits with Ian Haworth,” we dived into the arguable corruption in Congress surrounding insider trading.

Full episodes are available on Sundays 9pm EST, exclusively on YouTube.

Congress is supposed to be limited by what’s known as the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (or STOCK Act). It was passed in 2012, and (supposedly) bans politicians from trading on confidential information they learn while in office, and requires members of Congress to disclose all transactions over one thousand dollars within 45 days. 

If they are late, they’re fined…$200 for their first offense.

Amazingly, this fine isn’t the insurmountable deterrent they thought, because this law has been violated by 66 members of  Congress, and counting, leading to renewed calls for legislators to be banned from trading individual stocks.

The truth is, members of Congress trade individual stocks. A lot. And what’s super duper weird is how good they are at it.

According to NASDAQ, just in 2021, Congress bought and sold well over $500 million worth of stocks, options, securities, and cryptocurrencies. And so many of them were just…so lucky.

In fact, they did so well, the 2021 Congress beat the market, helped by some…unusual trades.

Senator Tommy Tuberville bought up to $1.84 million in non-energy mineral stocks like copper, steel, and aluminum, just before Biden signed his infrastructure bill. He also sold up to $15,000 in Microsoft stocks in late June, two weeks before a $10 billion government contract was canceled. 

Tuberville sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has access to defense contracts…

Just like House Republican Pat Fallon, who sits on the House subcommittee which reviews defense contracts, who sold $250,000 of Microsoft stock right before the deal fell apart.

House Republican Brian Mast bought stocks in cannabis company Tilray just before voting in support of the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act. He sold the stock for a return of 563 percent.

House Republican Kevin Hern — who sits on the House Budget Committee — bought stocks in Lockheed Martin in August, and again just weeks before the arms company won a $10.9 billion government contract. House Democrat Kathy Manning — who sits on the House Foreign Affairs committee — bought Lockheed Martin stocks two weeks before the deal.

What a coincidence!

House Democrat Zoe Lofgren bought up to $15,000 in an electric vehicle manufacturing company, and has co-sponsored electric vehicle tax credit proposals in the past.

Then there’s the world of cryptocurrency.

Senator Cynthia Lummis bought up to $100,000 of Bitcoin in August, while the Senate was drafting crypto regulations. Senator Pat Toomey also drafted amendments to these crypto regulations…while holding crypto.

Then there’s Nancy Pelosi.

In March of last year, the Pelosi power couple bought millions in Microsoft stock. And what do you know? Under two weeks later, Microsoft announced a $22 billion contract with the U.S. Army, putting them up 160 percent.

This year, just a few weeks before Congress voted on whether to invest $54 billion in semiconductor manufacturing and research in the U.S., Paul Pelosi invested millions in NVIDIA.

What do they make? Semiconductors. Where are they based? Silicon Valley which is *checks notes* in the U.S.