Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her husband, Paul Pelosi, have been fortunate in the stock market over the last few years.
During the pandemic, Paul Pelosi made millions with options, many times on stocks that were impacted by government contacts overseen by Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi also just grabbed 50 call options from Nvidia, a major software company specializing in AI, and it got a lot of attention.
Paul and Nancy Pelosi are worth an estimated $140 million, with Paul having made some rather timely trades in the past.
According to the report, one of his latest purchases was 50 call options of Nvidia with a strike price of $120 per share with an expiration date of December 20, 2024. The current price of Nvidia is $493.95. If you do the quick math, that is currently about an $11 million profit. Pelosi disclosed the purchase on Friday before the holiday weekend, what most would consider a tactic to help ensure the information gets lost in the weekend news cycle.
Pelosi is far from being alone in this little scam. Almost 100 members of Congress have traded stocks for companies that their committees have direct oversight over. For instance, Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s (D-OR) wife has traded CVS Health and UnitedHealth Group stocks, both companies overseen by the House Ways and Means Committee, which Blumenauer sits on.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) has traded Kinder Morgan, an energy firm, and Boeing stocks. Crenshaw sits on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change, which is relevant to Kinder Morgan, and he also sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees defense contracts with Boeing.
When Crenshaw’s office was asked for a comment, it stated:
“These are incredibly low dollar amounts being traded, especially when you put them in context with other members who trade huge sums of money in the stock market.
“All of these trades were made using publicly available, well-reported information. The claim that there is any conflict of interest behind these transactions is absurd.”
Crenshaw is a perfect example of how members of Congress try to stay under the radar with congressional insider trading. They trade lower dollar values that are a drop in the bucket, but this allows them to slowly build up their net worth.
Crenshaw spent about a decade in the U.S. Navy, retiring as a Lt. Commander of SEAL Team 3. Point being, he did not get rich in his previous profession, yet he has somehow managed to create an estimated $2 million net worth since joining Congress in 2019, mainly on the strength of his stock trades.
He is far from the level of some of the more blatant members of Congress, but he also happens to have one of the highest rates of success among members of Congress in the stock market, regularly earning a profit on his trades.
Senators Ossoff (D-GA) and Kelly (D-AZ) have previously introduced legislation to ban members of Congress from being able to trade stocks, the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, which has received overwhelming support from the public in polling, but it has yet to make it to the floor. Similar legislation was presented in the House, but it has also failed to make it to the floor for a vote.
