It took a ton of pressure from a few good members of Congress,
as well as diligent work by journalists to raise the issue of members of Congress
effectively using insider information to enrich themselves by trading in stocks.
And the pressure grew and grew and grew until earlier this year, Nancy Pelosi
finally admitted that something had to be done and the practice had to be banned.
And so, it's not gonna happen.
It was supposed to be in this on the spending bill.
The bill is out, it's not in there.
I guess there wasn't room.
I mean, the bill, after all, is only 4150, pages.
It's got a ton of stuff for the government, for
individual members of Congress, their pet projects, but no language banning members
from trading individual stocks, despite a bipartisan congressional push to do so.
So many people who seriously wanted that to happen and
they just couldn't get it to happen.
And so what do we have?
Well, we don't have that, but we do have the stock act, okay?
So Congress passes a decade ago, intended to combat insider trading.
Now, it doesn't ban the practice, but,
a key provision in the stock act mandates that lawmakers publicly and
quickly disclose any stock trade made by themselves, a spouse or a dependent child.
So that, in theory, were they to use information that they got in a meeting to
buy some stock, you'd know it immediately and you could do the same thing,
except they just don't abide by it.
Insider has identified 77 members of Congress in their most recent
analysis who have violated even that minimal disclosure requirement.
And you're probably wondering, well, now that we know who they are,
what's gonna happen?
What are the enforcement mechanisms in the stock act?
Well, it's possible at this point, I wanna get ahead of the news cycle, but
it is possible that they might have to pay as much as $200 as a fine,
it's often a wave though, so they're probably not even gonna have to do that.
And to give you an idea of what we're talking about.
The amounts and the delay between when they do the trade and
when they disclose it, it is comical at this point.
Rand Paul was 16 months late in disclosing that his wife bought stock in a bio
pharmaceutical company that manufactures an antiviral Covid 19 treatment.
I'm sure he didn't get- >> Wait a minute, wait a minute.
I thought doing an antiviral,
I thought Covid didn't even exist Rand Paul, what happened?
I thought you beat it in the bushes of your name [LAUGH] in their dispute with
your neighbor.
That sounded weird, okay.
[LAUGH] But Rand Paul, it turns out you're making money off the vaccine.
You politicians amuse me, and the people who believe in you amuse me but
more, sorry, John go ahead.
>> Look, it's obviously in something where they could get insider information and
16 months.
So, good luck using the fact that the spouse of a senator is moving on a stock,
it's not gonna help you at this point.
Look, there are people like Democrats, Susie Lee because again,
this is in both parties,
200 stock trades together amounting to $3.3 million not disclosed.
Mo Brooks by the way,
didn't disclose the sale of Pfizer's stock worth up to $50,000.
Weird that he was dealing with Pfizer when they've made up this whole pandemic and
everything.
But no, there's Representative Katherine Clark,
one of the highest rating ranking Democrats in the house,
weeks late in disclosing 19 stock trades worth as much as $285,000.
Last year Republican from Tennessee didn't disclose more than 700
stock trades together worth as much as $10.9 million.
And so this, the fact that the stock act might as well not even exist.
It only serves to give us an excuse to talk about this topic at this point,
combined with the fact that Nancy Pelosi who did not wanna ban
individual stock trades in the first place.
And was only forced to because people kept being gosh and bringing it up over and
over again, has succeeded in killing it as an issue.
And now the Democrats all ready gonna be in charge.
Now, in theory the Republic who during the last campaign brought
up the constantly that Nancy Pelosi wasn't out long this.
Using as an example of how corrupt the Democrats were,
that they weren't banning this.
Well now they have a great opportunity.
They can ban it,
they can prove that they're the ones that are against corruption.
The ball is in their court, I don't think they're gonna use it.
>> Yeah, by the way, if the Republicans actually did ban the personal trading
of stocks for the Congress people, I'd give them all the credit in the world.
God bless.
You know what I mean this is a bit shocking but
Matt Gates actually has some pretty good anti-corruption proposals that he has.
Maybe he could use the leverage of the Kevin McCarthy vote to insist that those
get a vote.
I'm just saying Matt, think about it, right, and
I'm giving credit here on good anti corruption stuff.
Now, are the Republicans likely to pass a single anti-corruption bill?
[LAUGH] A lesson in total fraud.
And it's just meant to trick you into thinking they did anti corruption.
I would be shocked.
But I would tell you the truth, I would be happy to tell you that if they pass them,
but they're very,
very, very likely won't, because they're just as criminal as anyone else.
But normally it's the Republicans that are, do the wheeling and dealing, etc.
You think that's the popular conception of it, partly because mainstream media,
let's be honest, favors Democratic leadership, okay?
And protects Democrats, and you saw it in Sam Bank man freed.
He said I gave the Democrats publicly because I get PR credit for it.
I gave the Republicans in through dark money because you're gonna get
criticized for it.
Democrats take the same money to do the same wrong things with it, that's campaign
contributions, in this case, it's their own personal money they're trading with.
So I'm gonna read you four others other than ones that John read you because I
just think it's hilariously symbolic, okay.
Tom Carper, Democrat from Delaware senator,
four months late disclosing his wife's sale of stock in a gold mining company.
[LAUGH] Guys are like,
it's like Elmer J fudd >> [LAUGH]
>> In Congress.
Anyway, Senator Bill Haggerty, a Republican from Tennessee,
months like disclosing stock trades on behalf of his dependent children.
I read that one to you because like half of this stuff is inherited.
In his case, he's the kids are gonna take his money, but
half the senators got money from their parents.
Senator Cynthia Loomis, a Republican from Wyoming, was several days late,
which is not that big a deal, let's be honest.
Okay, so we're fair, but she was several eight days late in purchase of in
August of up to $100,000 in Bitcoin.
So my point here is, not, hey, my God, she was a couple of days late,
they were a couple of months late in reporting stuff.
Number one issue here is people doing the insider trading in the first
place with the knowledge that they have.
Number two issue is the ones that did not disclose for a long time that were trying
to actually hide what they were doing, and that includes Democrats and Republicans.
The third issue which is what I'm talking about here is it's hilarious the way that
they make money.
And and it's kinda representative of who our political elite are,
which brings me to Senator Gary Peters, Democrat from Michigan.
Peters was months late disclosing a purchase of up to
$15,000 worth of stock in KKR Capital Corp.
That is a giant private equity group, so we've got gold mining,
we've got private equity, we've got Bitcoin.
And here we go, Senator Dan Sullivan on the opposite end of
the scale that I was talking about earlier, Republican from Alaska weeks late
disclosing the sale of two stock holdings he had inherited.
So these are the royals that rule us all, Jordans.
>> Yeah, this goes beyond just them reporting late too like you said.
The Stock Act, if it's a $200 penalty for reporting late or for
any violation of the Stock Act, it's just a $200 fine to do whatever you want.
When the penalty is only a small $200 fine for the wealthy and
many of members of Congress are wealthy, that's nothing,
it means it's effectively legal for them, it's just a little bit more expensive.
But if you look at how Congress have performed,
how their portfolios have performed, you have multiple, I think dozens
of members of Congress who are just, apparently they belong on Wall Street.
They're way outperforming the SNP.
I mean, they would be the top hedge fund manager on Wall Street with their
performance, which shows it's not that they are crunching the numbers are just
really are good at analytics, it's that they're operating on inside information.
Or they're doing things and knowing,
I think Loomis was a big proponent of crypto in general, so she's holding it and
then going out and saying, we need to incorporate Bitcoin and
other cryptocurrencies into people's retirement portfolios.
Which is a big push, there's a big bipartisan push there.
She stands to benefit from the inclusion of cryptocurrencies into retirement
portfolio.
So they have a huge conflict of interest that they're even owning
any of these stocks, let alone buying and selling them while in Congress.
And like you're saying, Republicans could do this, they said they wanted to what it,
but it's very easy when they're the opposition party and out of power.
Now they're going to have it, this could be a huge win for them and I agree,
I agree with Jenk, I would applaud if they did it.
But I think the hollow populism that we've demonized and decried for
the past several years, it's really going to show its face yet again.
They're not going to do it.
It sounds good in the press, it sounds good on social media, but
now that they're actually going to have control of the house, they won't do it.