Pelosi Squirms When Asked if Stock Trading Ban will Cover Spouses

Nancy Pelosi’s stock trading precipitated so much outrage that she, after defending Congressional day trading as one of those blessings of the “free-market,” had to backtrack and call for an end to the practice.

But, while she’s now starting to say the right thing when asked about why members of Congress should be able to buy and sell stocks based on information that only they know, she’s holding out on one major part of such a bill, a part that, without which, a stock-trading ban wouldn’t be all that effective.

That’s the ban on spouses of members of Congress trading stocks. Without a ban on their stock trading, people like Dan Crenshaw or Nancy Pelosi, members of Congress that had some massive returns on their portfolios last year, could simply call up their better half and say what should be bought or sold and when.

Nancy Pelosi is already suspected of doing that. Her husband, Paul Pelosi, made millions off of call options on tech stocks at a time that Pelosi was supposedly working on a bill to rein in Big Tech. Pelosi and her husband also bought millions in call options shortly after Pelosi defended Congressional stock trading.

So, if a ban on Congressional stock trading doesn’t include spouses, they could just have their spouses place the trades they had planned on executing.

That’s potentially why Pelosi, though she now nominally supports banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, started squirming when asked if she’d support such a ban on spouses of members of Congress.

Right now, as Just the News reports, the relevant bill, The Ban Conflicted Trading Act “prohibits a Member of Congress or certain congressional officers or employees from (1) purchasing or selling specified investments, (2) entering into a transaction that creates a net short position in a security, or (3) serving as an officer or member of any board of any for-profit entity.”

You’ll notice that the act doesn’t include spouses. So, a reporter asked Pelosi if, when the House passes the bill, it will apply to spouses as well as members. She refused to give a straight answer, saying:

“I’m a big believer in our committees, and we’ve tasked the House Administration Committee to review the options that members are putting forth — and they have different views on the subject. But I’d said that certain criteria that I wanted to see was whatever — whatever design they have for that, that’s one. But the other is, we have to tighten the fines on those who violate the STOCK Act. It’s apparently not sufficient to deter behavior.”

She then tried to throw off reporters with a red-herring, noting that the Supreme Court doesn’t have a stock trading prohibition, saying:

“It has no reporting of stock transactions. And yet it makes important decisions every day. I do believe in the integrity of people in public service. I want the public to have that understanding. We have to do this to deter something that we see as a problem, but it is a confidence issue. And if that’s what the members want to do, then that’s what we will do.”

So, she never answered the question. That means her answer is “no,” she wants her husband to keep making millions on tech stocks as she reframes herself as a crusader against corruption.

By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.