A government watchdog group asked the Office of Congressional Ethics last week to investigate Assistant Speaker of the House Katherine Clark, D-Mass., for apparently failing to timely disclose up to $285,000 in financial transactions — making the potential successor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the latest among numerous House and Senate members to face ethics complaints about allegedly violating the STOCK Act.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, better known as the STOCK Act, has gained renewed attention during the COVID-19 pandemic when some lawmakers were suspected of using information from government roles to profit.
Broadly, the law prohibits members of Congress, congressional staffers and certain members of the executive branch and federal judiciary from engaging in insider trading based on information they learn through their government jobs. One provision of the law requires members of Congress to make a “full and complete” statement of their assets and their spouse’s assets, debts and income, as well as periodic reports of financial transactions that exceed $1,000 within 30 to 45 days of the transaction.
Hellbound and Down 