(Headline USA) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., denied having any knowledge of her husband’s questionable stock purchases, dismissing criticism of the trades as irrelevant.
Paul Pelosi recently purchased more than $1 million of stock in a semiconductor company just as Congress is getting ready to vote on a $52 billion subsidy to the industry as part of a package to increase U.S. production of computer chips.
He bought between $1 million and $5 million shares of Nvidia, according to a disclosure filing made by Pelosi’s office, exercising 200 call options, or 20,000 shares.
When asked whether Paul Pelosi’s stock trade has anything to do with Congress’s upcoming vote on a bill that could send as much as $52 billion to the semiconductor industry, Pelosi’s office denied any wrongdoing.
“The Speaker does not own any stocks,” Nancy Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, said in a statement to FOX Business.
“As you can see from the required disclosures, with which the Speaker fully cooperates, these transactions are marked ‘SP’ for Spouse,” he said. “The Speaker has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions.”
Pelosi believes “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Hammill added.
“To be clear, insider trading is already a serious federal criminal and civil violation and the Speaker strongly supports robust enforcement of the relevant statutes by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission,” he said.
After initially attempting to oppose a bill last year that would ban members of Congress and their immediate family members from trading stocks, Pelosi appeared to throw her support behind it last year.
“The Speaker led the House in passing the bipartisan Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, which would subject federal judges to similar disclosure requirements as those in the STOCK Act. President Biden signed this bill into law in May.”
Since then, however, Paul Pelosi has been the subject of repeated criticism for trades that appear closely to follow with his wife’s House votes.
“It just doesn’t smell right,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.
“And frankly, it is one of the commitments of Republicans in a majority to make sure that we have the correct rules in place, to make sure that there’s no malfeasance, and to make sure that members of Congress and their family members, particularly their spouses, are not able to profit at all over these types of investing,” she added.
