A Democratic lawmaker bought 31 different stocks — including shares of defense contractor Raytheon — the day Russia invaded Ukraine. His office blamed a 'miscommunication' with financial advisors.

• Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon purchased up to $465,000 worth of stock on February 24.
• His office says the purchases, which came the day Russia invaded Ukraine, were mistakes.

Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon bought 31 different stocks the day Russia invaded Ukraine, including up to $15,000 worth of shares in defense contractor Raytheon, according to a new personal financial disclosure filed with the US House.

But Blumenauer's office says the purchases on February 24 — together valued at between $31,031 and $465,000 — were mistakes.

"Due to a miscommunication, his financial advisors purchased some stock on his behalf," Blumenauer communications director Hillary Barbour said in an email to Insider. "When this was reported to him, he immediately ordered it sold (at a loss) and gave unequivocal direction that he should not hold any individual stock."

Barbour declined to answer questions about the nature of the miscommunication or whether Russia's invasion of Ukraine affected the timing of the stock purchases.

In addition to Raytheon, which manufactures Javelin and Stinger missile systems that Western nations have shipped en masse to Ukraine, Blumenauer bought — then dumped — shares of Google parent company Alphabet, Bank of America, investment management company BlackRock, Goldman Sachs Group, Home Depot, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Starbucks, and Walt Disney Company, among others.

Congressional disclosure records indicate that Blumenauer, on March 14, sold all the stocks he purchased on February 24. While some of these stocks declined in value during the time Blumenauer owned them, others, including Raytheon, rose. Members of Congress are only required to disclose the values of their stock trades in broad ranges, making it difficult to know precisely how much money Blumenauer made or lost.

Blumenauer's stock snafu comes as the Committee on House Administration is set to conduct a congressional hearing this Thursday on whether members of Congress — as well as their immediate family members — should be allowed to trade individual stocks at all.

Lawmakers are also expected to discuss whether to increase penalties for violating the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, a law that marked its 10th anniversary Monday.

Throughout his congressional career, Blumenauer has voluntarily abstained from trading individual stocks.

"The congressman has long believed that members of Congress should not trade individual stocks," Barbour said.

But Blumenauer's wife, Margaret Kirkpatrick, owns dozens of stocks.

Her holdings, according to Blumenauer's most recent annual personal financial disclosure, included up to $500,000 worth of stock in Northwest Natural Gas Company, where she until recently worked as a senior vice president and general counsel. She also bought up to $15,000 worth of stock in Quest Diagnostics, a leading COVID-19 test provider, as the pandemic took hold in March 2020.

As recently as February, she bought stock in several companies, including insurance giant Allstate Corporation, Alphabet, biopharmaceutical company Amgen, power utility FirstEnergy, and healthcare real estate company Ventas, according to a congressional disclosure.

Barbour declined to say whether Blumenauer supports Congress banning lawmakers' spouses from trading stocks, as some in Congress are proposing.

Insider's "Conflicted Congress" project in December found that dozens of lawmakers, and at least 182 senior congressional staffers, had failed to comply with the reporting requirements of the STOCK Act.

"Conflicted Congress" also found numerous examples of conflicts of interest among federal lawmakers.

For example, at least 75 members of Congress or their spouses bought or sold stock in companies that make COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests in the weeks before and after the pandemic gripped the US in early 2020.

Four members of Congress or their spouses have either currently or recently invested money in Russian companies, and at least 19 have invested money in defense contractors that make weapons Ukraine is using to fight Russia's invasion.

Blumenauer, for his part, wasn't the only member of Congress — or even the only member from Oregon — to report errant stock trades on the day Russia invaded Ukraine.

Sen. Ron Wyden recently disclosed that his wife, Nancy Bass Wyden, purchased between $50,001 and $100,000 in Apple stock on February 24.

"The shares of AAPL were purchased in error and immediately sold on the same date, with no gain," Wyden, a Democrat, wrote to the secretary of the Senate on March 23.

"Banning members and their spouses from trading stocks fixes this," said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for nonpartisan watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "You should never have to question whether your representative is acting in their best interest or yours. When it comes to members of the government, the appearance of a conflict of interest can sometimes be just as bad as an actual conflict."