A new report has found that at least 40 members of Congress have violated conflict of interest laws in the last 12 months. And because nobody ever gets punished, we could see that number grow even larger this year. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
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Mike Papantonio: A new report has found that at least 40 members of Congress have violated conflict of interest laws in the past 12 months. And because nobody ever gets punished, we could see that that number continues to grow larger every year. Wow. This is, you know, go to Congress, not because you’re gonna do anything, not because you’re gonna help consumers. Not because you’re gonna pass any law that’s good for climate. Not because you’re gonna pass any laws good for healthcare. Go there because it’s a big money maker. It’s a huge money maker, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It is. What’s funny about this, lemme throw some numbers out here, 40 members at least that we know of, violated the Stock Act. 40. Do you know how many pieces of legislation this congress passed in that same amount of time? 20.
Mike Papantonio: Wow.
Farron Cousins: So we had twice as many violations of a federal law than we had pieces of new legislation pass the chamber. That’s how insane this is. They’re more concerned about trading their stocks and making their money than they are about actually legislating
Mike Papantonio: The numbers are staggering.
Farron Cousins: They really are.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, we did one story where we saw that it was a 286%, take the S&P, okay, and this legislator made 260, 280% higher than the S&P. Nancy Pelosi made almost 70% higher than the S&P. All of these folks are cashing in on what they know. They go to committee meetings, they learn that there’s gonna be a new war. Well, let’s go buy defense stock. Matter of fact, this one part of this that caught my eye, Rick Allen. Rick Allen from Georgia, $8.5 million in stock transactions. It took him six and a half years before he reported it. And they give these lame excuses like, well, I just, it was a mistake. It was an error, it was a clerical error, administrative error. These are actually excuses or my financial advisor, well, he’s to blame. And they know it’s a lie. I mean, it’s Democrat. It’s more Democrat, interesting on this story, it’s more Democrats doing this than Republicans. Maybe they have more money. I don’t know why. But this is not a Democrat Republican story.
Farron Cousins: No, no. This is one of those where it is, it is the left. It is the right. It is everybody almost that we have in Congress that is doing this. And they do it because as we’ve talked about before, the penalty, when they get caught, if they get caught using their insider knowledge to make $20 million on a stock trade, the penalty is $200. And in most instances, the ethics committee actually waives the fees. So there’s no fee, but okay, if you have to pay $200 to make a million, hell yeah, I’ll take that transaction all day long. Because that’s a small user fee at that point.
Mike Papantonio: I love this quote. It’s by Brian Baird. He’s a Democrat in Washington, Washington State. He says, I’m so tired of these excuses. The dog ate my homework is what all of my colleagues are saying. The dog ate my homework. I’m not responsible for this. They’re, it’s criminal conduct that you and I would be in prison for, for 10 to 20 years if we did this. If we did one of them. Much less hundreds and hundreds year after year. But they don’t go to prison for it. They get rewarded. They make more money. They’re able to come into congress paupers and leave multimillionaires. Great example, Nikki Haley, we talk about all the time.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. She actually, it was reported not that long ago, Nikki Haley just got a huge infusion of campaign cash from Wall Street to save her, even though obviously she’s got no shot at winning. But Wall Street says, we like you, here’s more cash.
Mike Papantonio: Well, why do they say that? Because she’s nothing but a corporate. I mean, she literally is. Look at her relationship with Boeing. Is she better than Trump? Probably. You know, that’s not a tough standard. But she comes into Congress, she’s a pauper, has no money. Within what, five years, she’s living in a $5 million mansion. Where’d the money come from? It came from her relationship with corporate America. That’s why you have Wall Street pumping so much money into her campaign.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week, but all these segments are gonna be posted right here on this channel in the coming week. So make sure you subscribe. I’m Mike Papantonio, and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you the stories every week that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t allow ’em. If they tell the story, the advertisers are gonna pull the money or their political connections are so strong, either Democrat or Republican, that they’re afraid to talk about their political party. As you’ve seen on this show for years, we’re not afraid to talk about either political party. We talk about balls and strikes. Hopefully we’ll see you next time.
