Congresswoman Donna Shalala Reveals that She Did Not Disclose Stock Sales After Pelosi Appointed Her to Preside Over Multi-Billion $ Bailouts
Congresswoman Donna Shalala openly admitted that she did not disclose at least 6 stock sales that were made following her election to the U.S. house in 2018 according to a Zerohedge report.
The sales were curiously discussed after Nancy Pelosi appointed Shalala to a committee presiding over hundreds of billions of dollars of bailout money being doled out to corporations via the Wuhan virus relief bill, according to a report from Axios.
Shalala sold some of her stocks in Boeing, Alaska Airlines, Chevron, Conoco, and AMC after winning her congressional race in 2018.
She defended her actions by saying that she made the sales in order to avoid conflicts of interest. However, she did not report the stock sales within 45 days as mandated by the STOCK act. “I did file my disclosure report, so everybody knew what my holdings are. They didn’t know I was unloading the entire portfolio so I could put everything into mutual [funds] basically to avoid any conflict of interest,” she stated, according to The Hill.
Her spokesperson, Carlos Condarco, previously stated that Shalala was not acquainted with the rules. “She had a misunderstanding about the periodic transaction report process and her need to report the sale of these stocks while preparing a blind trust. As a new member with a broker and attorney who were not familiar with the congressional disclosure rules, there was a misunderstanding.”
However, Shalala contradicted her spokesman’s statement:
Look, I knew what the law was. I missed the deadlines.
She added:
It was my mistake and I take full responsibility. I missed the deadlines. And I have to take responsibility, personal responsibility for doing that. No one else is responsible except for me.
In terms of punishment, Shalala said that she is receptive to whatever is appropriate: “Whatever they think is appropriate. Whether it’s a financial penalty or anything else. I’m really sorry I missed those deadlines in the process of trying to do the right thing.”
Politicians have lately come under fire for selling stocks after attending a private congressional briefing on the Wuhan virus. Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler was the most notable of these figures who bought and sold roughly $1.4 million in stock right before the market crashed.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
Ms. Loeffler reported that she and her husband bought about $590,000 of stock and sold about $845,000 of stock from Feb. 18 through March 13. If they had held the shares they sold through Monday, the stock would have been valued at $86,000 less than what they sold it for, according to the Journal analysis.
If Congress wants to make wealth transfers more accountable, it needs to completely prohibit elected officials who have sensitive stocks from presiding over bailout commissions.
Better yet, Congress should not be bailing out any companies and let them fail instead.
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