- Reps. Pat Fallon, Tom Suozzi, and Chris Jacobs failed to properly disclose personal stock trades.
- The botched disclosures violated the federal STOCK Act's disclosure provisions.
The US House Committee on Ethics on Friday cleared three members of Congress — two Republicans and a Democrat — of wrongdoing for failing to properly disclose what together were hundreds of personal stock trades worth millions of dollars.
There "was not clear evidence" that Reps. Pat Fallon, a Republican of Texas; Tom Suozzi, a Democrat of New York; and Chris Jacobs, a Republican of New York committed "knowing and willful" violations on the federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, the Committee on House Ethics unanimously concluded.
The three congressmen "were generally unclear on the requirements" related to disclosing their personal stock trades, the committee wrote in a ruling made public Friday afternoon. "The committee has worked with each member, and they have all made diligent efforts to take appropriate remedial actions and ensure their continued compliance with applicable financial disclosure requirements."
The ruling by the bipartisan committee — five Democrats and five Republicans — effectively dismisses formal referrals from the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which Congress itself established in 2008. The Office of Congressional Ethics conducted its own investigation and unanimously concluded earlier this year that there was "substantial reason to believe" Fallon and Suozzi had violated the STOCK Act. It issued a split-decision referral for Jacobs.
A top government ethics watchdog on Friday lamented the House Committee on Ethics' decisions.
"By flouting the rules, members of Congress keep showing us they are not focused on ethics," said Walter Shaub, a senior ethics fellow at nonpartisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight who previously served as director of the US Office of Government Ethics. "If they can't even disclose their trades on time, how can we trust them to avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of insider trading?"
Insider and other media organizations have since 2021 identified 66 members of Congress who have violated the disclosure provisions of the STOCK Act, which Congress passed a decade ago to outlaw insider trading, curb conflicts-of-interest, and increase transparency.
Although it has not issued an official ruling, it appears that the House Committee on Ethics also dismissed a STOCK Act violation referral for a fourth member of Congress — Rep. John Rutherford, a Republican from Florida.
The Florida Times-Union reported Friday that the committee told Rutherford, who is himself a member of the committee, that it found "no clear evidence" that he failed to properly disclose dozens of stock trades over a span of four years. Rutherford recused himself from his own case, the Florida Times-Union reported.
The Office of Congressional Ethics has referred several STOCK Act-related cases — most notably, that of Rep. Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat — to the House Committee on Ethics, which alone has power to punish member of the US House for ethical transgressions.
Had the House Committee on Ethics ruled against any of the congressmen, it had several punishments at its disposal, including issuing official reprimands or censures.
"The committee takes the statutory financial disclosure requirements and its oversight of them very seriously," it wrote Friday in its ruling. "It is working to address various programmatic issues raised by these referrals and will publicly address them at a later date."
Federal law requires that lawmakers publicly disclose any personal stock trade of more than $1,000 within 45 days of making the trade.
Insider first reported that Fallon was months late disclosing dozens of stock trades during early- and mid-2021 that together are worth as much as $17.53 million. Fallon was late again in December 2021 disclosing stock trades.
Suozzi has been habitually late filing stock trades. He failed to file required reports on about 300 financial transactions from 2017 to 2020, NPR reported, citing research from the Campaign Legal Center. In March 2022, Suozzi disclosed more than 30 stock trades months or years past a federal deadline, Insider reported. In May 2022, he disclosed 10 more stock trades weeks past the federal deadline for doing so.
Jacobs was months late filing various transactions made throughout early- to mid-2021, Forbes first reported.
Representatives for Suozzi, Jacobs, and Fallon, did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
The House Committee on Ethics' ruling comes on a week when House Democrats said they planned to introduce in August consensus legislation that would ban members of Congress, their spouses, and top congressional staffers from trading stocks at all.
In addition to the dozens of lawmakers who failed to properly disclose stock trades, Insider's "Conflicted Congress" investigation found dozens more lawmakers whose personal stock trades are discordant with their public responsibilities.
This includes members who craft anti-tobacco policy but invest in tobacco giants and Democrats who receive plaudits from environmental groups for crafting policy aimed at combating the climate crisis — yet invest in fossil fuel companies.
Numerous Republicans who oppose abortion rights personally invest in companies at the forefront of the abortion-rights movement. A growing number of lawmakers are meanwhile trading the stock of defense contractors all while considering massive military spending proposals.