In article <uhuh8e$1q3vd$1@dont-email.me>
<pronoun@protonmail.com> wrote:

House speaker's fortune has grown $140 million since 2008, thanks in
part to her husband's trades

Pelosi scoffed at the idea of banning lawmakers from trading
individual stocks as recently as December, saying that she and her
colleagues should be able to fully participate in the free market
economy. After rejecting similar proposals, Pelosi is throwing her
weight behind legislation that would ban stock trading among members
of Congress and other senior government officials. House Democratic
leaders introduced the Combating Financial Conflicts of Interest in
Government Act last Tuesday but failed to bring the measure to a
vote before adjourning for the midterm elections.

Pelosi has been dogged by allegations that her husband, Paul Pelosi,
trades stocks on inside information gleaned from her position in
Congress. In March, Paul Pelosi exercised options to buy up to $5
million worth of Tesla stock as the speaker pushed for electric
vehicle subsidies, the Washington Free Beacon reported. And in June,
Paul Pelosi exercised call options to buy up to $5 million in the
graphics card manufacturer Nvidia just weeks before the House
considered a bill to provide more than $50 billion in subsidies to
domestic semiconductor manufacturers.

Pelosi said in November 2020 after being nominated for a fourth term
as speaker that she would relinquish the gavel at the end of 2022.
And while she announced in January that she would run for reelection
in 2022, there is rampant speculation that she will depart Congress
should Republicans retake the House in the upcoming midterm
elections.

Even Pelosi’s late-stage about-face is not enough to pacify her
progressive critics. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D., Va.) says the
speaker and Democratic leadership only put the bill forward because
they knew it would fail.

The bill "was written to create confusion surrounding reform efforts
and complicate a straightforward reform priority," Spanberger said
in a statement on Friday, "all while creating the appearance that
House Leadership wanted to take action."

Pelosi’s portfolio has performed remarkably well during periods of
financial turmoil, her financial disclosures show. Her estimated net
worth skyrocketed at the onset of the Great Recession, going from
$31.4 million in 2008 to $101.1 million in 2010, a 220 percent
increase in a window where the S&P 500 decreased by 13 percent. The
speaker also reaped a significant return during the COVID-19
pandemic, seeing her estimated net worth jump from $106 million in
2019 to $171.4 million in 2021, an increase of 60 percent.

Government ethics watchdogs noted glaring loopholes in the Pelosi-
backed stock trading bill they say will create new avenues for
lawmakers to secretly profit from their positions in Congress.

"To say the bill is weak ... would be an understatement. The bill is
dangerous. It would undermine what little ethics we have in our
federal government," former director of the Office of Government
Ethics Walter Shaub said of the measure.

Shaub noted that the bill would enable lawmakers to enter into "fake
blind trusts." Typical blind trusts, in which a lawmaker’s assets
are handled by an independent manager, require trustees to divest
whatever officials put in the trust. But the Pelosi-backed bill
would exempt trustees from the divestiture requirement, Shaub said.

"The problem with this bill is it creates a completely separate
process and doesn't have any particular rules or requirements around
it," Project on Government Oversight government affairs manager
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette told Insider. "You'd be able to create any
kind of a trust you want to, put anything you want into it, and call
it a blind trust, even though there wouldn't actually be any way to
prove that it is, in fact, a blind trust."

The precise net worth of Pelosi and all other members of Congress,
is unknown, as lawmakers report a range of values for all their
assets rather than exact dollar amounts. Pelosi’s estimated net
worth of $171.4 million in 2021 was calculated by taking into
account the ranges of all the individual assets and liabilities
reported in her financial disclosure statement.

Pelosi joined Congress in 1987 with a net worth of at least $2.7
million, according to her financial disclosure filed that year and
obtained by Politifact. Pelosi’s net worth during her inaugural year
in Congress was almost certainly higher than that figure, however,
because lawmakers were not required at the time to report an upper
range for their assets as they are today.

Pelosi has flatly denied allegations of insider trading. Her office
did not return a request for comment.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/the-stock-market-made-nancy-
pelosi-rich-now-she-wants-to-ban-her-colleagues-from-trading/