Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in hot water over her husband’s multi-million dollar stock trade. Recently, Paul Pelosi — a heavyweight in the venture capitalist industry who last month crashed his car and was charged with DUI — bought between $1 and $5 million worth of stock in Nvidia, a tech company that manufactures computer chips, on June 17th. That purchase came right before a Senate meeting scheduled for later this week where a bipartisan bill to support semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. is on the table. The bill would offer incentives like tax credits and grants for companies creating these chips using U.S. labor. The deal has proven to be extremely lucrative for the Pelosis.
When questioned today on whether her husband had any inside information on the bill that led to his stock purchase, Pelosi simply brushed the accusation off.
NEW – Pelosi says “no, absolutely not” and leaves when asked if her husband ever made stock trades based on information received from her.pic.twitter.com/ay04qa0zl5
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 21, 2022
The stock grab has put a sour taste in voters’ mouths, especially since this isn’t the first time Pelosi’s investment portfolio has seemed a bit sketchy — there’s even a Twitter account dedicated to tracking her trades. Last year, Jacobin named Nancy Pelosi their “Wall Street Trader of the Year” noting how the Congresswoman’s wealth had grown by an estimated $16.7 million during the pandemic. At a time when people were struggling to survive, Pelosi’s portfolio was thriving and though dozens of members on Capitol Hill were being investigated for potentially violating federal law with their own suspicious trades, Pelosi seemed to shoot down any notion of a bill banning representatives from investing while in office. Additionally, she’s been dodging questions about her and her husband’s stock trades for years, as evidenced in this old 60 Minutes clip.
“Speaker Pelosi I wanted to ask why you & your husband accepted and participated in a large ipo deal with VISA in 2008, when a legislation dealing with credit cards was going through the house. Was that a conflict of interest?”
@60Minutes pic.twitter.com/zKbFxAo0Om
— Chavez Ravine
FreePalestine
(@ChavezRavineLA) July 21, 2022
“We are a free-market economy,” Pelosi told reporters last year when asked about the ethics of people in Congress investing in the stock market. “They should be able to participate in that.”
Everyone from Sen. Jon Ossoff to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have come out to support a stock trading ban, even getting Republicans to endorse certain measures, but no bill has yet to make it to the floor. And now, people are beginning to wonder if Pelosi’s own investments in the stock market are to blame.
“The people who control the calendar [Pelosi] don’t want to bring it to the floor,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), author of a bipartisan House proposal to force lawmakers to put their assets in a blind trust. https://t.co/ED72jNYBg1
— Peter Schweizer (@peterschweizer) July 21, 2022
“The people who control the calendar don’t want to bring it to the floor,” Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger said. “The people who control committees of jurisdiction don’t want to bring it to the floor.”
That all said, Pelosi’s shady stock trading seem to be one of the few things these days that is uniting people on both the left and the right.
Pelosi being asked if her husband ever insider traded today was literally the same thing as this classic Chappelle sketch…
pic.twitter.com/MBYTA0gXsH
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) July 21, 2022
Ban all members of congress from trading stocks. Pelosi is hardly the only guilty party, but this looks corrupt as hell.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) July 19, 2022
I spent several years as a stock analyst at a hedge fund.
The SEC would have thrown me in jail in a heartbeat for trading based on the kind of corrupt insider knowledge Paul Pelosi routinely uses to profit in the stock market.
The same rules should apply to Congress.
— Brandon Gill (@realBrandonGill) July 19, 2022
There’s no conflicts of interest here. It’s just a coincidence that Nancy Pelosi, her husband, and every wealthy member of Congress along with their spouses are all extremely gifted stock market savants. https://t.co/Gm0ltHquLY
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) July 21, 2022
Paul Pelosi buying up stock ahead of congressional votes is freakin outrageous! The Pelosi‘s enriching themselves on the backs of congressional votes and the American people is sick and wrong. This needs to be illegal!!
— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) July 17, 2022
NEW—In Feb, Pelosi told Dems to build “consensus” on a bill to ban member stock trading.
Now, key lawmakers say they’re near consensus—but others have lost faith that Dem leadership will ever prioritize the push.
“It’s inexcusable,” one Dem told me.https://t.co/Uqk6gfMt2p
— Sam Brodey (@sambrodey) July 21, 2022
Ban stock trading by members of Congress & their spouses. Call it the Pelosi Act https://t.co/pMpl4sQC6N
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 18, 2022
(Via Yahoo! News)