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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got some tough news from her fellow Democrats.
Democrats plan to introduce legislation next month that would prevent stock trades by members of Congress and their spouses.
This legislation comes soon after Nancy’s husband, Paul Pelosi, bought computer chip stock right before the legislation went through for computer chip manufacturing.
“The framework would force members of Congress, their spouses, and senior staff to place assets in either a qualified blind trust or completely sell them off. Lawmakers, spouses, and staff would still be able to hold mutual funds,” The Daily Mail reported.
Their goal is to get the legislation through the House in September.
“This issue of whether and how Members of Congress engage in various financial transactions deserves scrutiny by the Committee,’ Sen. Josh Hawley said in a letter to Sen. Gary Peters, chair of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
“In 2020 Speaker Pelosi and her husband outperformed the S&P 500 by a whopping 14.3 percent,” he said. A report showed that 90 percent of investment funds that are actively managed do not do that.
Of course, Pelosi was not in favor of any type of ban, but in February she changed her opinion if it involved the entire government.
“It has to be government-wide,” she said. “The judiciary has no reporting. The Supreme Court has no disclosure. It has no reporting of stock transactions, and it makes important decisions every day.”
“We’re a free market economy,” she said in December. “[Lawmakers] should be able to participate in that.”
Paul Pelosi is being criticized for purchasing $5 million in stock in a chip manufacturer as Congress was set to vote on legislation that could hand $52 billion to semiconductor producers.
According to a report, Pelosi was making notable moves in the stock market in June, including “investing millions in Nvidia Corporation” while selling “large quantities of Visa and Apple stocks and call options,” The Epoch Times noted, citing a disclosure from the Speaker, a California Democrat.
The Epoch Times reported:
According to the filing, Paul Pelosi exercised 200 call options, or 20,000 shares, of Nvidia at a strike price of $100 and expiration of June 17, 2022, worth between $1 million and $5 million.
On that same date, her husband also sold 50 call options in Apple at a strike price of $100, with the transaction listed with a value of between $100,000 and $250,000.
Call options are a contract between a buyer and a seller to purchase a certain stock, bond, commodity, or other assets at a certain price up until a defined expiration date.
The legislation to prevent stock trades has not gone through yet but is set for September.
