The only House Democrat selected to be on the committee that was established to oversee hundreds of billions of dollars being distributed from the coronavirus stimulus package allegedly broke federal law when she failed to report stock sales last year.
Rep. Donna Shalala (D-FL) “told the Miami Herald on Monday she sold a variety of stocks throughout 2019 to eliminate any potential conflicts of interest after she was elected to Congress in November 2018,” the Miami Herald reported. “But the transactions were not publicly reported as required by the STOCK Act, a 2012 law that prohibits members of Congress and their employees from using private information gleaned from their official positions for personal benefit and requires them to report stock sales and purchases within 45 days.”
Shalala, a former Clinton administration official, claimed that her financial adviser was responsible for the problem.
Shalala’s office asserted Shalala and her financial adviser made a mistake.
Shalala spokesperson Carlos Condarco told the Miami Herald: “She had a misunderstanding about the periodic transaction report process and her need to report the sale of these stocks while preparing a blind trust. As a new member with a broker and attorney who were not familiar with the congressional disclosure rules, there was a misunderstanding.”
Shalala admitted the transactions after Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected her for the role and said that she owned stock in multiple companies that could be eligible for bailout money from the American taxpayer.
The Miami Herald added that “the transactions were never disclosed publicly until her office told the Miami Herald.”
The revelation about Shalala’s stock activity comes as multiple U.S. senators have come under the microscope due to stock trading they did in recent months as the U.S. stock market crashed.
Fox News reported:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and three of her Senate colleagues reported selling off stocks worth millions of dollars in the days before the coronavirus outbreak crashed the market, according to reports. …
Feinstein, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and her husband sold between $1.5 million and $6 million in stock in California biotech company Allogene Therapeutics, between Jan. 31 and Feb. 18, The New York Times reported. …
Reports identified the three other senators as Richard Burr of North Carolina, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, all Republicans.
Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, used more than 30 transactions to dump between $628,000 and $1.72 million on Feb. 13, according to ProPublica.
On Tuesday, Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer rushed to cancel coronavirus contracts that she awarded Democrat consulting firms and a Democrat operative who wished for Trump to be infected by the coroanvirus after facing public backlash.
“The Whitmer administration announced Monday that it had awarded a contract for contact tracing in the state to Every Action VAN, an arm of the Democratic data behemoth NGP VAN. The liberal firm works with all of the major Democratic campaign committees and hundreds of labor unions across the country,” The Washington Free Beacon reported. “The move has sparked concern that she is using the coronavirus to strengthen the Democratic Party’s data operation, potentially at the expense of public health.”
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