While running for Congress last year, Republican Rob Bresnahan—like most Americans—hated the idea of lawmakers making money by trading individual stocks in elected office and said he wanted to ban the practice.
Then he won his race.
Now a congressman representing northeastern Pennsylvania, Bresnahan is one of the most active traders in Congress and is drawing political heat for some of the transactions, which he says are handled by an adviser who doesn’t consult him on trades. He recently suggested he wouldn’t follow through on his plan to put his investment portfolio in a blind trust as an ethical firewall. He hasn’t signed on to a leading House effort to restrict stock trading, instead introducing his own bill that ethics advocates and colleagues have said is weak.
When asked during a Scranton-area radio interview if he planned to tell his adviser to stop trading stocks to avoid backlash, he replied: “And then do what with it? Just leave it all in accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?”
Hannah Pope, a spokeswoman for Bresnahan, declined to say whether he plans to follow through with his plans for a blind trust. She said Bresnahan’s trades are executed without his input.
“Any suggestion that Rob has involvement in his financial planner’s trades is complete and utter bulls—,” she said.
Many lawmakers decry stock trading on principle, only to back off later when faced with the practical impacts—ranging from transaction costs and taxes to annoyance over being told how to conduct their finances. While some are plowing ahead on ideas for new bans, passage remains uncertain after a history of failed efforts.
Proponents of a crackdown see trading as an obvious opportunity for corruption. Opponents note that insider trading is already illegal and say that new rules would discourage successful businesspeople from running for Congress.
Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.), one of Congress’s wealthiest members, with investments in private equity and hedge funds, in a recent hearing raised questions about how lawmakers would sell illiquid assets under a stock-trading ban. Scott, who hasn’t reported any stock trading this year, said supporters of a ban were insinuating that a lawmaker’s wealth is bad.
“This idea that we’re going to attack people because they make money is wrong,” he said. “We should cherish all of our different backgrounds.”
Rep. Gil Cisneros (D., Calif.), one of the most active traders in the House, said earlier this year that he opposes broad trading bans. He would, however, support restrictions on investing in industries that lawmakers oversee.
“I think our standards are too loose here,” he said. He added that his trades are handled by an outside financial manager….
Category Archives: conflict of interest laws
“Emil Bove Continued to Work at Justice Dept. After Judicial Confirmation”
Emil Bove III, a senior Trump administration official, was narrowly confirmed last month to serve as an appeals court judge, brushing past a bitter confirmation fight despite concerns that he would carry out the president’s directives while on the federal bench.
Still, Mr. Bove has continued to work at the Justice Department, appearing just last week at a department event to celebrate the crime-fighting takeover of the Washington police, according to video of the gathering. It was just one instance of Mr. Bove’s presence at the department, where he has also attended meetings, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the department’s inner workings.
The code of conduct for federal judges does not appear to apply to Mr. Bove, who court records show has yet to be sworn in. But the fact that he has remained at the Justice Department has raised eyebrows. Some legal experts said that working for the administration after being confirmed could undermine faith in the court system. Others expressed worry that Mr. Bove could expose himself to potential conflicts, advising Justice Department officials on matters that may eventually land before him as a federal judge.
“What the rules protect is public trust and confidence in the independence of the judiciary, which is of great value to the country, whether or not there is anything else that is untoward,” said Stephen Gillers, an expert on legal ethics at New York University’s law school. “Socializing with Trump is fine. Advising Trump is not fine. Putting himself physically in a place where it looks like he is identifying with the president’s political agenda is not fine.”…
“Over 1 in 5 high-level Trump picks held crypto, Post analysis finds”
Nearly 70 Trump administration officials and nominees held cryptocurrency or investments in blockchain or digital-asset companies at the time of their selection, with stakes ranging from small to more than $120 million….
[T]he appointment of multiple officials with crypto holdings comes at a time when the administration has taken a hands-off approach to regulation of digital currencies. The administration has also backed policies supported by the crypto industry, including legislation in Congress. The industry has prospered: The price of bitcoin hit an all-time high this week, doubling its value from last year….
[V.P. J.D.] Vance, who also serves as the Republican National Committee finance chair, has been active in outreach to the crypto industry. He reported bitcoin holdings between $250,001 and $500,000 in a disclosure detailing his 2024 finances.
In May, Vance hosted a fundraiser for Trump PAC on the sidelines of the Bitcoin 2025 Conference that required a $1 million donation per attendee, according to an invitation for the event viewed by The Post.
“I’m here today to say loud and clear, with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House,” Vance said at the conference.
“Amid upcoming redistricting deadline, massive changes could soon be coming for Ohio’s congressional map”
Ohio’s redistricting process has been, charitably, a mess.
WLWT in Ohio focuses on the coming summer redraw of Ohio’s congressional lines, which were valid only for 2022 and 2024 under Ohio’s constitution, because they were passed by a simple legislative majority rather than by bipartisan consensus. The article picks up on the national pressure for both Texas and Ohio to redraw congressional lines to maximize partisan gain.
Seems like a useful time for a reminder that the Supreme Court called “excessive partisanship in redistricting” “incompatible with democratic principles,” even as it closed federal courthouse doors to hearing partisan gerrymandering claims. Whether something is constitutional or not – or consistent with elected officials’ oaths of office – is a question emphatically different from whether a judicial dispute resolution forum is available.
“Hawaiʻi Senator Didn’t Disclose Possible Conflict Of Interest Before Voting”
From the Honolulu City Beat article:
Donovan Dela Cruz voted four times in favor of passing a bill designed to protect māmaki tea, even though he owns a māmaki tea business.
. . .
The Senate’s rules require that members cannot vote on legislation if there is “a direct financial interest” in the legislation, defined as affecting the legislator’s “personal business, property or financial interest.”
“Trump’s financial disclosures reveal millions in income from guitars, bibles and watches with his name on them”
President Donald Trump continues to enjoy income streams from scores of luxury properties and business ventures, many of which are worth tens of millions of dollars, according to a financial disclosure form filed late Friday.
Released by the Office of Government Ethics, Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure spans 234 pages in all, including 145 pages of stock and bond investments, and is dated Friday with Trump’s signature.
One of the largest sources of income on the form is the $57,355,532 he received from his ownership stake in World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency platform launched last year. The form shows that World Liberty’s sales of digital tokens have been highly lucrative for Trump and his family. Trump’s three sons, Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron, are listed on the company’s website as co-founders of the firm….
“Donald Trump’s Politics of Plunder”
Evan Osnos, in the latest issue of the New Yorker, reviews the state of American oligarchy and the First Family’s use of the Oval Office as a private moneymaking machine.
One small excerpt:
Even seasoned practitioners of Washington pay-to-play have been startled by the new rules for buying influence. In December, a seat at a group dinner at Mar-a-Lago could be had for a million-dollar contribution to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that serves as a war chest for the midterms. More recently, one-on-one conversations with the President have become available for five million. The return on investment is uncertain, a government-affairs executive told me: “What if he’s in a bad mood? You have no clue where the money is eventually going.” Another lobbying veteran described the frank exchange as “outer-borough Mafia shit.”
And on a related note, in the NYT today: “Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner”
“As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests”
Peter Baker for the NYT:
When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review.
Thirty-one years later, after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice.
The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and are opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone.
Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Mr. Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined.
And Mr. Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Mr. Trump personally.
By conventional Washington standards, according to students of official graft, the still-young Trump administration is a candidate for the most brazen use of government office in American history, perhaps eclipsing even Teapot Dome, Watergate and other famous scandals.
“I’ve been watching and writing about corruption for 50 years, and my head is still spinning,” said Michael Johnston, a professor emeritus at Colgate University and author of multiple books on corruption in the United States.
Yet a mark of how much Mr. Trump has transformed Washington since his return to power is the normalization of moneymaking schemes that once would have generated endless political blowback, televised hearings, official investigations and damage control. The death of outrage in the Trump era, or at least the dearth of outrage, exemplifies how far the president has moved the lines of accepted behavior in Washington….
“Trump dines with top meme coin holders, shrugging off ethics concerns”
President Donald Trump dined with the top purchasers of his meme coin at a black-tie gala Thursday night, demonstrating his willingness to cross what was once seen as an ethical red line: profiting off the presidency while in office.
Presidents of both parties have long granted special access to wealthy political donors and participated in private dinners to raise funds for their parties or their own campaigns. But campaign money comes with legal restraints, and donors must disclose donations to political candidates or committees.
Trump’s crypto venture is different: He and his family profit personally when people buy his meme coin, and crypto transactions are often shrouded in anonymity. The venture has collected millions of dollars in crypto transaction fees from the attendees eager to gain access to Trump, who has described himself as the “crypto president.”
Since the meme coin’s debut in January, Trump-affiliated businesses have received $312 million from crypto sales and $43 million in total fees, according to a Washington Post analysis of data through last week. Crypto wallets linked to Trump and his partners have earned about $3 million in transaction fees charged to coin buyers since the dinner was announced last month, The Post’s analysis found.
The White House has argued the dinner poses no conflict of interest because the president’s assets are in a blind trust managed by his adult sons. Asked whether the administration would commit to releasing a list of the dinner attendees, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday she would “raise that question” internally. Leavitt argued that the event “is not a White House dinner” and that “the president is attending it in his personal time.”
The Chinese-born crypto billionaire Justin Sun, former National Basketball Association player Lamar Odom and a crypto investor known as “Ogle” are among the top 220 buyers of the meme coin who qualified to attend the Thursday dinner at Trump’s golf club in Virginia. Sun, who had been under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission over 2023 allegations that he had tried to manipulate markets, invested millions in one of Trump’s other crypto ventures after the November election. In February, shortly after Trump took office, the SEC asked a court to halt the case against the crypto baron. Sun did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story….
“Trump’s crypto dinner cost over $1 million per seat on average”
More than 200 wealthy, mostly anonymous crypto buyers are coming to Washington on Thursday to have dinner with President Donald Trump. The price of admission: $55,000 to $37.7 million.
That’s how much the 220 winners of a contest to meet Trump spent on his volatile cryptocurrency token, $TRUMP, according to an analysis by the blockchain analytics company Nansen.
The top $TRUMP coin holders at a specific time — determined by the dinner’s organizers — secured a seat.
In total, the winners spent $394 million on Trump’s official cryptocurrency, Nansen found, though some have sold portions of or all of their holdings since the contest ended. The amount varied significantly by spender, with the top seven winners each spending more than $10 million and the bottom 24 each spending less than $100,000. A third of the winners — 67 of them — spent more than a million dollars, the research shows. The average winner spent $1,788,994.42.
Like many meme coins, $TRUMP’s value fluctuates wildly, according to CoinMarketCap, which tracks cryptocurrency prices. Nansen tracked how much each of the contest winners spent on their $TRUMP at the time they purchased it.
The top 220 contest winners were invited to the black-tie optional dinner at the Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C. While the website for the contest claims that Trump “is appearing at the dinner as a guest and not soliciting any funds for it,” it also says that 80% of the $TRUMP coin project is owned by two Trump-affiliated companies, CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC.
The personal cryptocurrency and associated contest, which ended last Monday, adds to the litany of ways Trump has appeared to use the office of the presidency to profit personally. His business interests are in a trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr., and he has intertwined many of his family businesses with his activities as president, including holding events, like the crypto dinner, at his social clubs, and issuing exclusive political statements on his social media app Truth Social. …
“U.S. AG Pam Bondi Sold More than $1 Million in Trump Media Stock the Day Trump Announced Sweeping Tariffs”
Attorney General Pam Bondi sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares of Trump Media the same day that President Donald Trump unveiled bruising new tariffs that caused the stock market to plummet, according to records obtained Wednesday by ProPublica.
Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, fell 13% in the following days, before rebounding.
Trump’s “Liberation Day” press conference from the White House Rose Garden unveiling the tariffs came after the market closed on April 2. Bondi’s disclosure forms showing her Trump Media sales say the transactions were made on April 2 but do not disclose whether they occurred before or after the market closed.
Trades by government officials informed by nonpublic information learned through work could violate the law. But cases against government officials are legally challenging, and in recent years judges have largely narrowed what constitutes illegal insider trading….
“As Trump Courts Gifts and Dangles Access, Congress Sits on the Sidelines”
Carl Hulse for the NYT:
The president stood accused of dangling exclusive access to the White House for big bucks. Members of Congress were duly outraged, with one prominent Republican assailing him for using “probably one of the more sacrosanct places in America” to rake in cash. Months of high-profile congressional hearings ensued.
That was in 1997, when President Bill Clinton came under scrutiny for inviting campaign donors to stay overnight in the White House’s famed Lincoln Bedroom, prompting a firestorm around claims that he was shamelessly exploiting the presidency.
Nearly three decades later, President Trump has drawn accusations of corruption and self-dealing for publicly flirting with accepting a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar and promising an exclusive country club dinner and White House tour for the largest buyers of his crypto coin, one of many financial exploits enriching him and his family.
But the Republicans who control Congress aren’t rushing to convene investigative committees just yet. As is often the case when Mr. Trump’s actions or words put him squarely in the middle of a controversy, top G.O.P. lawmakers are in no hurry to question the president or amplify the criticism.
“This is a hypothetical,” the Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said on Tuesday when asked if he was comfortable with the gifting of the jet. Should the matter move beyond the hypothetical stage, he said, “I can assure you there will be plenty of scrutiny of whatever that arrangement might look like.”
To those who were caught up years ago in the frenzy over the Lincoln Bedroom, the acceptance of Mr. Trump’s activities within his own party is discouraging to say the least….
“Trump’s Plan to Take Jet From Qatar Heightens Corruption Concerns”
Charlie Savage for the NYT:
During President Trump’s first term, the idea that special interests and governments were buying meals and booking rooms at his hotels set off legal and ethical alarms about the potential for corruption.
Mr. Trump’s second term is making those concerns look trivial.
The administration’s plan to accept a $400 million luxury jet from the Qatari royal family is only the latest example of an increasingly no-holds-barred atmosphere in Washington under Trump 2.0. Not only would the famously transactional chief executive be able to use the plane while in office, but he is also expected to transfer it to his presidential foundation once he leaves the White House.
The second Trump administration is showing striking disdain for onetime norms of propriety and for traditional legal and political guardrails around public service. It is clearly emboldened, in part because of the Supreme Court’s ruling last year that granted immunity to presidents for their official actions and because of the political reality that Mr. Trump’s hold on the Republican Party means he need not fear impeachment.
Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee raked in $239 million from wealthy business interests hoping to curry his favor or at least avoid his wrath, more than doubling the previous record, $107 million, set by his inaugural committee in 2017. There is no way to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on dinners and events, and the committee has not said what will happen to leftover funds.
Before returning to office, Mr. Trump also started a meme cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, which allows crypto investors around the world to enrich him. His family has already made millions on transaction fees, and its own reserve of the digital coin is worth billions on paper.
This month, Mr. Trump went further by auctioning off face-to-face access to himself through sales of the coin, announcing that top buyers would get a private dinner at one of his golf courses and that the largest holders would get a tour of the White House. The contest injected new interest in the coin, even though it has no intrinsic value.
The removal of such constraints extends to law enforcement.
In April, the Trump administration disbanded a Justice Department unit dedicated to investigating cryptocurrency crimes.
Earlier, Mr. Trump had also ordered the department to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it a crime for companies that operate in the United States to bribe foreign officials.
And Attorney General Pam Bondi, herself a former highly paid lobbyist for Qatar, narrowed enforcement of a law requiring lobbyists for foreign governments to register such relationships and disclose what they are paid.
The administration has not made public its legal analysis concerning the agreement with Qatar….
“Auction to Dine With Trump Creates Foreign Influence Opportunity; When the bidding stops Monday, the top buyers of a Trump family crypto coin will win a tour of the White House.”
NYT:
The sale of face-to-face access to President Trump using the Trump family’s own cryptocurrency has done more than benefit him financially, though it has certainly done that.
Mr. Trump announced last month that leading buyers of a digital coin his family is marketing would be rewarded with a private dinner with him at one of his golf courses and that the very top bidders would win a tour of the White House.
The auction, which ends Monday, has set off a spectacle that has drawn bipartisan criticism, triggered a suspicious trading pattern, and left a sitting United States president wide open to attempts to corruptly influence him.
Since the announcement, crypto investors around the world have raced to expand their holdings of $TRUMP — a digital currency called a memecoin, which is typically treated more as a novelty investment than an actual currency.
ertain buyers, in interviews and statements, have said they bought the coins or entered the dinner contest with the intention of securing an action by Mr. Trump to affect United States policy.
The contest has pushed up the memecoin’s trading price, adding billions of dollars, at least on paper, to the value of a $TRUMP stash controlled by the Trump family and its business partners. And in a matter of weeks, the Trumps and their partners have reeled in more than $1.3 million in fees, taking a cut every time the coins changed hands, according to Chainalysis, a crypto data firm.
Certain other large traders, sensing an opportunity to cash in, have moved quickly to sell their $TRUMP holdings, exploiting the run up in price caused by Mr. Trump’s promotional push as new money poured in from people enticed by his offer of “the most exclusive invitation in the world.”
But the blitz of profit-seeking by Mr. Trump and his family is also provoking a backlash.
Last week, it helped derail a major piece of crypto legislation pending in Congress, as the sale prompted objections from crypto industry executives and lawmakers, including some Republicans.
“It does give me pause because it complicates our work here,” Senator Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming, said in an interview last week after some Democrats began to balk on the crypto bill over Mr. Trump’s involvement in the industry. “The optics are challenging.”
Trading records examined by The New York Times show that a flurry of purchases of the $TRUMP token started the day before the coin’s backers disclosed the contest. Information had leaked about the upcoming promotion, allowing certain parties to make early bets that the market price was about to jump, the records suggest.
The aggressive effort by Mr. Trump and his partners to promote the dinner has also drawn scrutiny from former securities regulators, who assert that Mr. Trump may be violating federal securities laws. However, he would almost certainly not be targeted for investigation, now that his administration has curtailed crypto enforcement efforts at both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department.
“This absolutely would have triggered an initial investigation,” said John Reed Stark, an enforcement attorney who spent 18 years at the S.E.C., including as chief of its unit that examined cybercrimes. “Or at least it certainly would have under norms from prior Republican and Democratic eras.”…