Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) is the latest member of a congressional armed services committee to personally invest in one of the nation’s top defense contractors while also overseeing the nation’s military affairs.
Keating disclosed purchasing between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of Boeing Co. corporate notes, according to a U.S. House financial document filed Sept. 28 and reviewed by Raw Story.
Keating is a member of the House Armed Services Committee which, in the U.S. House, “retains exclusive jurisdiction for defense policy generally, ongoing military operations, the organization and reform of the Department of Defense” and other military-focused responsibilities.
The Boeing purchase is “part of an IRA retirement account that is third-party managed, and investment decisions are made by that third party,” Keating spokesperson Chris Matthews told Raw Story in an email. “The positions of the investment firm do not influence the congressman's policy positions.”
Keating’s office declined to name who makes trades on the congressman’s behalf.
“Unfortunately, we've been advised not to disclose non-public information about the Congressman's personal accounts due to concerns surrounding cyber-security targeting,” Matthews said.
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 — that would notably prohibit members of Congress and their immediate family members from buying and selling stock.
That doesn’t cut it for Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who described Keating’s investment as a “raging conflict of interest.”
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Tillipman noted that regardless of whether Keating personally made the trade, he’s attested to being aware that he owns a financial interest in a defense contractor. And as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, he has the power to influence legislation, conduct oversight and set spending priorities that affect Boeing — and therefore, his personal investments, she said.
“It’s crazy,” Tillipman told Raw Story. “You have a body that doesn’t want to self-regulate. They need to do better.”
Keating is hardly the only member of Congress to invest in defense contractors.
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Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), for one, recently 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.
Republican presidential candidate 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.
Raw Story also broke the news that Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) was as much as six-and-a-half years late in reporting 136 stock and other financial transactions on an Aug. 10 disclosure — totaling between $3.05 million and $8.56 million. Up to $15,000 of that was invested in defense contractor CAE Inc.
While Keating publicly disclosed his Boeing investment within a 45-day window mandated by law, numerous members of Congress have violated the existing Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 by failing to properly disclose otherwise legal stock and financial trades.
Keating himself violated the STOCK Act in 2022 with late trades, according to Insider.
