House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) abruptly exited her weekly press conference on Thursday after being asked about her husband’s questionable stock transactions; at the same time, the Senate was readying a vote that would directly benefit the industry he invested in.
“Over the course of your career, has your husband ever made a stock purchase or sale based on the information you’ve received as Speaker,” a reporter asked Pelosi.
“No… absolutely not,” Pelosi said, looking stumped and pushing the microphone down in front of her before making an exit.
Like every lawmaker, the senator must submit a periodic transaction report within 30 to 45 days of stock transactions over $1,000 made on their behalf or their spouses under the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012.
It was reported last week that Paul Pelosi, the husband of the Speaker, recently bought up to $5 million in stocks in a semiconductor company, which happened to line up just as the Senate was set to vote on a competition bill this week that would give a $52 billion subsidy to the semiconductor industry.
Breitbart News wrote:
Paul Pelosi exercised 20,000 shares worth between $1 million to $5 million in Nvidia, a semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, which was revealed in a disclosure that Nancy Pelosi filed to the House of Representatives on Thursday.
The same disclosure also revealed that Paul Pelosi sold 10,000 shares worth between $1 million to $5 million in Visa and 50 call options worth between $100,000 to $250,000 in Apple.
In June 2021, Paul Pelosi also purchased up to millions of dollars in Nvidia stocks, the Daily Caller reported. It appears this purchase occurred around the same time the Senate would pass a more expanded version of the semiconductor subsidy bill; however, the House never took up the legislation.
The Speaker is among the highest earning members in the House who trade stocks, and she has previously stated that she is against banning congressional lawmakers from trading stocks.
The STOCK Act was a bipartisan bill that banned insider trading by members of Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on April 4, 2012. The legislation received overwhelming support from both parties.
In 2011, Breitbart News senior contributor and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer rocked official Washington with his investigative revelations of insider trading by members of Congress. Left-leaning Slate hailed Schweizer’s blockbuster book on the topic, Throw Them All Out, “the book that started the STOCK Act stampede.”
One of the main figures featured in Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out was then-chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who announced he would not seek reelection after the book’s reporting.
Indeed, Bachus was the only elected official the late Andrew Breitbart ever called on to resign. CBS’s 60 Minutes did an investigative report on Schweizer’s revelations that won them the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based journalism.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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