WASHINGTON — Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA), a member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, dumped up to $65,000 worth of investments in defense contractor Boeing at a time when the company faces federal scrutiny over its aircraft safety protocols and manufacturing quality.
On Feb. 8, Keating sold a Boeing corporate note valued at between $15,001 and $50,000, and on Feb. 28, sold Boeing stock shares valued at between $1,001 and $15,000, according to a federal disclosure submitted this week to the Clerk of the House of Representatives and reviewed by Raw Story.
The House Armed Services Committee on which Keating sits “retains exclusive jurisdiction for defense policy generally, ongoing military operations, the organization and reform of the Department of Defense” and other military-focused responsibilities.
A spokesperson for Keating told Raw Story that Keating uses a “third-party manager” to execute his financial trades and “first learned of the February sale as he was preparing his disclosure filing.
“The congressman relies on his financial adviser to make independent decisions,” said Keating spokesperson Chris Matthews, who declined to name the third-party manager.
For one government watchdog, that explanation isn’t adequate to defend against potential conflicts of interest.
“It is absolutely not sufficient for us just to take his word on this,” said Robert Maguire, research director for the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which supports a ban on federal lawmakers trading individual stocks. “America needs to know that public servants are serving the public first.”
Maguire recommended that Keating, or any federal lawmaker, who wants to hold stocks do so through a “vanilla mutual fund” as opposed to individual stocks such as Boeing.
Boeing manufactures numerous weapons systems and military aircraft in wide use by the U.S. military and the nation’s allies. It also manufactures commercial jets, with its Boeing 737 Max line under fire for safety concerns after the door panel of an Alaska Airlines plane blew out mid-flight earlier this year.
“Boeing and its customers have created the future of aerospace and defense — from the earliest days of aviation to the highly sophisticated and integrated systems of today,” Boeing writes of its efforts.
Other members of Congress also trade the stocks of defense contractors while directly influencing the nation’s military policies and funding.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), for one, last year purchased up to $250,000 worth of stock in telecommunications technology company Qualcomm Inc., a federal defense contractor, while serving on the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services and actively blocking hundreds of military nominations and promotions, congressional financial disclosures reviewed by Raw Story indicate.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) failed to properly disclose nearly a dozen stocks on his 2022 financial disclosure, Roll Call reported. That included up to $50,000 in Boeing Co. stock, according to a review of federal financial disclosures by Raw Story.
Boeing is one of the most prominent lobbying forces in Washington, D.C., having spent between $12.5 million and $22 million each year since 2008 on federal-level lobbying efforts, according to an analysis of federal lobbying disclosures by nonpartisan research organization OpenSecrets.
Ban lawmakers from trading stocks?
Critics of lawmakers trading stocks argue that even members of Congress who cede stock-trading responsibilities to a financial adviser or money manager still know what stocks they own — and have that knowledge in mind when making decisions that could affect their stock portfolios.
Lawmakers presently have the option to create what’s known as a “qualified blind trust,” where their money is managed by an independent trustee and they receive no real-time information about their own assets.
But such trusts are time-consuming and expensive to create, and few federal lawmakers have established one.
Members of Congress have introduced several bills to ban themselves and their colleagues from trading stocks altogether, but to date, none have reached the floor of the House or the Senate for a vote.
Matthews noted that Keating “does support a ban on member trading” and is a co-sponsor of the TRUST in Congress Act, a bipartisan bill — languishing in the House Committee on House Administration since January 2023 — that would notably prohibit members of Congress and their immediate family members from buying and selling stock.
This is not the first time that Keating has traded Boeing stocks or notes: Raw Story previously reported the congressman purchased up to $50,000 in Boeing corporate notes in late September.
At the time, Matthews said the Boeing purchase was “part of an IRA retirement account that is third-party managed, and investment decisions are made by that third party.” He added that “the positions of the investment firm do not influence the congressman's policy positions.”
Keating is one of dozens of federal lawmakers who, at some point during the past several years, have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, according to reporting by Raw Story and several other news organizations, including Business Insider, NPR and Sludge.
During the current congressional session, Raw Story has identified 40 federal lawmakers who have violated this law by failing to disclose their financial trades on time.
Keating himself violated the STOCK Act in 2022 with late trades, according to Business Insider.
