As numerous members of Congress call for a ban on lawmakers and their spouses trading stocks, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi's household just made a massive purchase in tech stocks.
Pelosi (D-CA) disclosed on Thursday that her husband, Paul Pelosi, purchased up to $1 million in Microsoft stock and up to $500,000 in Apple stock by exercising stock options, according to federal financial documents reviewed by Raw Story.
Earlier this month, Pelosi disclosed that her husband sold off between $500,000 and $1 million worth of Apple stock to make a contribution to her alma mater, Trinity College.
Last year, then-House Speaker Pelosi had the opportunity to bring a vote on proposed legislation to ban congressional stock trading, but the efforts were effectively killed when the clock ran out at the end of the 117th Congress.
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Pelosi's congressional office did not respond immediately to Raw Story's requests for comment. Pelosi has long maintained that she has no personal involvement in her husband's prolific stock trading.
The calls for a stock ban come at a time when Congress has been scrutinized for rampant conflicts of interest and failure to abide by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law that was passed in 2012 to make congressional insider trading illegal, curb conflicts of interest and promote transparency around how congressional leaders and their staff conduct their personal stock transactions.
This year alone, Raw Story identified at least 15 members of Congress who have violated the STOCK Act. At least 78 members of Congress violated the STOCK Act's disclosure provisions from 2021 to 2022, according to a tally maintained by Insider. Not to mention a number of recent reports have identified conflicts of interest in the executive branch and judiciary as well.
RELATED ARTICLE: Nancy Pelosi's husband uses huge stock trade in contribution to her alma mater
Since 2021, Republican and Democratic members of Congress have introduced various bills named with similarly reinforcing acronyms like the STOCK Act — such as the ETHICS Act, TRUST in Congress Act and PELOSI Act — to strengthen the STOCK Act or outrightly ban congressional stock trading.
Others want to expand such restrictions to the judicial and executive branches, too. Earlier this week, Reps. Nick Langworthy (R-NY) and Derek Kilmer (D-WA) introduced yet another stock-ban bill, the Halting Ownership of Non-Ethical Securities and Trusts (HONEST) Act, which aims to limit conflicts of interest among executive branch officials.
“There is a crisis of confidence and trust in people's view of the Congress right now, and one way to address that is to understand that if people think members of Congress are there to serve themselves rather than the public and are taking advantage of their position, it hurts the integrity and the reputation of the institution," former Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), an original author of the STOCK Act, told Raw Story last week.
