The Republican Party Takes Flight

As usual, it’s the Republicans, Stupid:

Under the STOCK Act, members are required to report their securities trades over $1,000 within 45 days of the execution on forms called periodic transaction reports, also known as PTRs. The penalty for late transactions is $200. These rules are in place to provide transparency around lawmakers’ trades, and to deter them from using nonpublic information gleaned from their jobs to make trades that enrich themselves…

…[Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas] periodic transaction reports “evidence a pattern of late disclosure of reportable transactions, which continued even after he was on notice of his STOCK Act filing obligations,” the OCE report said. Between January and December 2021, Fallon failed to disclose in a timely manner 122 transactions at a value between $9 million and $21 million, the OCE found.

Fallon, a first-term lawmaker, filed his first periodic transaction report on June 17, 2021, a filing that had 93 transactions between January and April of that year for a value range of $7.8 million to $17.5 million.

A penalty of $200 Ameros and a gain of maybe $21,000,000 Ameros? That’s like a transaction fee at the ATM.

But wait! There’s more!

[John Rutherford, R-Fla.], who was sworn into Congress in 2017, routinely trades securities in IRA accounts and his periodic transaction reports “evidence a pattern of late disclosure of reportable transactions made in these accounts, which continued even after he was on notice of his STOCK Act filing obligations,” the OCE said.

He did not file his first periodic transaction report until Aug. 20, 2018, despite making reportable trades starting in July 2017. That report had 136 late reportable disclosures between $631,000 and $3.2 million. Of those, 134 transactions should have triggered a fine, the OCE found.

Rutherford continued to make late disclosures on Aug. 9, 2019; Dec. 18, 2019; May 1, 2020; July 29, 2020; Oct. 20, 2020; Feb. 2, 2021; and on Nov. 19, 2021. In total, between his swearing in and December 2021, Rutherford disclosed 157 late reported transactions valued between $652,000 and $3.5 million, the OCE found.

Anyone else?

A report concerning allegations of Rep. Chris Jacobs, R-N.Y. not filing timely stock trade reports was left unresolved by the OCE because of a tie vote. As a result, a truncated one-page report was released.

The House Ethics Committee, which has the ability to impose discipline and issue subpoenas, is investigating all three matters.

Nice work if you can get it.

Representatives know before the general public what is going on and an unscrupulous person could make all sorts of informed bets and make some tidy profits before anyone is the wiser. This shouldn’t be an ethics matter, it should be a criminal matter when insiders commit insider trading.

The Republican Party is a criminal operation from start to finish.