OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, have increasingly come under fire in recent months for conveniently timed stock trades, and the former Speaker is triggering similar scrutiny once again over a December disclosure showing a recent stock sale.
According to the form, the California Democrat sold around 30,000 shares of Google stock roughly three weeks before the Justice Department and eight states announced an anti-trust lawsuit against Alphabet, which is Google’s parent company — resurrecting previous allegations of “insider trading.” And while there is no evidence that Pelosi knew about the lawsuit ahead of time and that her decision to sell was influenced by it, many believe the timing is once again very suspicious.
“This latest action comes more than two years after the agency and a group of state attorneys general joined in another suit alleging Google’s search and search advertising businesses violate U.S. antitrust laws,” Yahoo! Finance reported Wednesday, adding:
The Justice Department’s [complaint] alleges that Google’s suite of online advertising tools prevents competitors from entering the online advertising market and blocks publishers from monetizing their own content.
The department further claims that Google is illegally using, or trying to use, its monopoly power, and should be required to divest a host of entities that allow it to carry out the allegedly offending behavior.
“Google’s anticompetitive behavior has raised barriers to entry to artificially high levels, forced key competitors to abandon the market for ad tech tools, dissuaded potential competitors from joining the market, and left Google’s few remaining competitors marginalized and unfairly disadvantaged,” the complaint states.
“Google has thwarted meaningful competition and deterred innovation in the digital advertising industry, taken supra-competitive profits for itself, and prevented the free market from functioning fairly to support the interests of the advertisers and publishers who make today’s powerful internet possible,” it adds.
Pelosi’s filing shows that she sold the shares on Dec. 28:
Source of article & source of the sellhttps://t.co/zvweRQyLo0 pic.twitter.com/Vx4KYKERMu
— Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker ♟ (@PelosiTracker_) January 25, 2023
Per The Daily Wire:
Pelosi, who resigned from her leadership position but remains a member of Congress, sold 10,000 shares of Alphabet Class A stock on December 20, December 21, and December 28, according to federal disclosures, marking a combined transaction value between $1.5 million and $3 million. The disclosures were digitally signed by the lawmaker on January 12.
Pelosi’s most recent trade just ahead of a major lawsuit “adds more fuel to the fire behind her and her husband Paul’s long record of alleged leverage of insider knowledge,” Big League Politics noted.
For instance, as the Daily Wire reported, “Paul Pelosi appeared to have cut losses in software company Nvidia last year before the United States placed new restrictions on computer chip sales to China and Russia.”
Another example relayed by The Hill added: “In March 2021, Paul Pelosi exercised options to purchase 25,000 Microsoft shares worth more than $5 million.”
“Less than two weeks later, the U.S. Army disclosed a $21.9 billion deal to buy augmented reality headsets from Microsoft. Shares of the company rose sharply after the deal was announced,” the outlet added.
Prior to the midterms, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pledged an investigation into the trades, which several Republicans have alleged appear to violate insider trading laws, if the GOP managed to win a majority.
Pelosi’s most recent trade and many like it are the impetus behind new legislation filed this week by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that no doubt turned the former Speaker’s head. Hawley introduced the “Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act,” which amends the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 prohibiting “transactions involving certain financial instruments by Members of Congress,” according to the language of the bill.
“Members of Congress and their spouses shouldn’t be using their position to get rich on the stock market – today I’m introducing legislation to BAN stock trading & ownership by members of Congress. I call it the PELOSI Act,” the Missouri Republican tweeted on Tuesday in a post containing a screenshot of the bill.
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 pic.twitter.com/aIXNwSnTvW
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 24, 2023
“For too long, politicians in Washington have taken advantage of the economic system they write the rules for, turning profits for themselves at the expense of the American people,” a statement from Hawley said.
“As members of Congress, both Senators and Representatives are tasked with providing oversight of the same companies they invest in, yet they continually buy and sell stocks, outperforming the market time and again,” his statement continued. “While Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other, hardworking Americans pay the price. The solution is clear: we must immediately and permanently ban all members of Congress from trading stocks.”
