A non-partisan ethics watchdog, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), sent another letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), laying out more information regarding Democrat Rep. Tom Malinowski’s (NJ) alleged violations of federal law after filing their first complaint in March.
Kendra Arnold, FACT’s executive director, wrote a letter to OCE that “set forth additional evidence for the Office of Congressional Ethics to consider in its proceedings.”
Arnold’s letter further stated Malinowski “failed to disclose about 90 stock trades worth between $671,000 and $2.67 million in 2020 as required by law.” She also pointed out that, around the same time of the trades in April 2020, Malinowski said no one should be “profiting off of selling ventilators, vaccines, drugs, treatments, PPE (personal protective equipment), anywhere in the world.”
“Yet it was Malinowski who, without disclosing it, was actually purchasing and selling stocks that were directly related to the pandemic—including the stock of a medical diagnostic company that manufactured COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] tests and manufacturers of shelf-stable food and exercise equipment,” the letter stated. “It appears Malinowski was secretly trading stocks related to a national crisis and was preventing the public from evaluating whether the transactions were based upon information he obtained from his official position.”
The letter asserted that Malinowski, even after the first complaint in March, still traded stocks without disclosing the transactions:
Recently it was reported that Malinowski “took more than the legally required time to report nine stock transactions worth up [to] at least $186,000 this month and in some cases nearly two months after the transaction. The nine stock transactions occurred in April and Malinowski was notified of them at the end of that month.”
Arnold, in the past, has outlined that trades must be reported within 45 days, noting that federal law states violators “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
In an emailed statement, Arnold said, “The disclosure laws are put in place for a reason and they are essential for a government to operate in an ethical and transparent manner.”
“Timely and accurate filings are the only way for citizens to determine whether the Member they elected is engaging in self-enrichment,” she continued.
Arnold added, “The Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee need to investigate Representative Malinowski immediately and impose the proper sanctions for all ongoing violations.”
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