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At least 97 current members of Congress bought or sold stocks, bonds or other financial assets that intersected with their work in Congress or reported similar transactions from their spouse or a dependent child, according to a New York Times analysis.
US lawmakers are not prohibited from investing in any company, including those that could be affected by their decisions. But the trading patterns revealed by the Times analysis underscore long-standing concerns about the potential for conflicts of interest or the use of inside information by members of Congress, government ethics experts say.
Times reporters analyzed trades between 2019 and 2021 using a database of members’ financial records called Capitol Trades created by 2iQ Research. They matched the transactions with relevant committee assignments and the dates of congressional hearings and investigations.
When contacted, many of the lawmakers said the transactions they reported had been done independently by a spouse or broker without any input from them. Some have since sold all their shares or moved them into blind trusts. Two said the transactions were random.
Here’s everything that emerged from the Times’ analysis.
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About the analysis
The Times started with data on financial transactions by members of Congress or their immediate family members between 2019 and 2021. The data was pulled from records from senators and representatives, which were digitized and linked to data on companies’ industries from the Capitol Trades. a project of Frankfurt-based financial data company 2iQ Research. The data was compiled by the firm’s team of more than 100 analysts, who reviewed each file by hand, according to Ahmed Asaad, head of research at Capitol Trades, and Diona Denkovska, head of data strategy at 2iQ Research.
Times reporters created a database of more than 9,000 examples of how these companies crossed paths with specific congressional committees and subcommittees. They identified committees that oversee areas of federal policy that are vital to the companies’ businesses, and those that oversee or fund federal agencies that have given the companies important contracts. They also looked at investigations the commissions conducted into specific companies and the company leaders those commissions called to testify at hearings.
They matched these potential conflicts with data on committee work, provided by the ProPublica Congress API, the Congressional Quarterly and Charles Stewart III, a professor at MIT, to find examples of transactions that overlapped with the member’s committee tenure.
The Times did not include trades in municipal bonds, mutual funds or index funds, even those that track a specific sector. It also did not consider trades by members who quickly disposed of shares immediately after being appointed to a relevant committee, or those whose trades were all sales, as long as they fully divested their shares within a 60-day period.
The Times could not account for every committee that affects every company. As a result, resolution is definitely an undercount.
