The everyday beast
Rep. Dan Crenshaw decided pandemic was the perfect time to buy and not disclose stock
Tom Williams / GettyRep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) did not buy or sell stock in his first 13 months as a congressman. That changed in March 2020, when he made half a dozen purchases as the largest economic aid package in history was written and discussed. Five of those purchases came within three days between March 25 and 27, when the Senate and House voted on CARES. Act and former President Trump signed it into law. Crenshaw, who backed the bill, initially did not disclose the transactions, in violation of the STOCK Act, a law that requires members of Congress to tell the public when they engage in securities trading. Months later, he adjusted his administration to reflect purchases. The trades, which are listed in a range of values only, are up to $ 120,000, and are not comparable in size or volume to the types of important trades that are made up front. of the pandemic by Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. They didn’t appear until December, when Crenshaw updated his annual report, originally filed in August. “You’re referring to financial disclosures that use a string to report stock purchases, and you pick the top of the string to get it. $ 120,000,” Justin Discigil, Crenshaw’s communications director, told the Daily Beast in an email. “The actual figure is around $ 30,000,” said Discigil, and “in no way were his purchases unethical or related to official business.” However, the timing, along with Crenshaw’s own trading history and industry connections, raises questions. on why he made the purchases and twice failed to disclose them. ”Members of Congress should not actively trade securities in the midst of a crisis. It shows that when the market crashes, that person thinks about himself and herself. uses the volatility to its own advantage, “said Ben Edwards, a securities law expert and professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada.” We h all have a limited amount of attention, and if you have it [an] If you keep an eye on your stock portfolio, you’re not giving that crisis or the American people the full attention they demand. Crenshaw, elected in 2018, had never traded individual stock in office, according to public records, until that crisis hit. When world markets crashed on March 12, Crenshaw bought between $ 1,001 and $ 15,000 in Amazon. Two weeks later, while Congress voted on the CARES Act, Crenshaw bought shares of the same price range in Southwest, Boeing, energy infrastructure manufacturer SPX and Kinder Morgan, a Texas-based pipeline construction company. He also bought into an index fund linked to the performance of the S&P 500. While it is unclear why Crenshaw initially did not disclose the transactions, they came as an increasing number of high-profile lawmakers became entangled in an insider trading scandal. With the exception of the Amazon purchase, all of Crenshaw’s transactions came a week after ProPublica reported that Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) had sold up to $ 1.72 million following private briefings on the coronavirus. On March 20, The Daily Beast reported that Loeffler and her husband had sold seven-figure shares after her initial confidential briefings on the pandemic. Criticism soon fell on transactions conducted by Sens. David Perdue (R-GA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and John Hoeven (R-ND), some investigation by the Department of Justice and the Senate stimulated. Ethics Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission. None of the lawmakers was prosecuted. Perdue and Loeffler lost their bids for re-election to Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock during the second round of elections in January. that a dozen senators made 127 transactions together during that period and 37 House members made at least 1,358 transactions. Texas representative Dan Crenshaw Dunks on the newly elected QAnon Queen, Marjorie Taylor Greene Crenshaw’s name, however, did not make it into those media reports because he failed to disclose his purchases. The STOCK Act, a 2012 law designed to discourage federally elected officials from trading on inside information, requires Congress to publish all transactions within 45 days. Not only did Crenshaw fail to disclose the transactions at the time, he also failed to include them in his annual disclosure, filed in August. And while that filing shows that Crenshaw owns the new assets, the form also requires members to list the transactions, including the dates, that Crenshaw left blank. They only appeared when the Lone Star Republican filed an amended annual report in December. Crenshaw’s spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the Harvard alum and the former Navy SEAL had filed that amendment “to address administrative issues in his report, such as checking dates are correct.” At the time of the transactions, Congress was struggling to put in place the CARES Act, a monumental emergency relief package that cost more than $ 2 trillion and was backed by Crenshaw. The Republican-led senate passed the bill on March 25, the day Crenshaw bought shares in SPX and the S&P 500 fund. The package passed the house the next day, when Crenshaw picked up Southwest and Kinder Morgan and was signed by Trump on March 27, the day Crenshaw acquired his stake in Boeing. and homeland security. Boeing, in particular, lobbied intensively and successfully for part of the CARES Act, initially asking for $ 60 billion and later hoping to receive a $ 17 billion tranche that lawmakers set aside for “companies critical to enforcing the US. national security “. The Independent Institute for Tax and Economic Policy said at the time that “it was widely believed that the bill’s authors want much, if not all, of this $ 17 billion to go to one company: Boeing.” But in late April, the manufacturer passed the deal, opting to instead raise $ 25 billion in private investment thanks to measures taken by the Federal Reserve independently of the CARES law. The day Crenshaw bought Boeing, the markets erupted their brief positive burst, and the company led the boards of directors that day with losses. His investment has now grown by more than 38%. Boeing’s employee PAC gave $ 3,000 to Crenshaw’s 2020 campaign. All Crenshaw purchases have paid off, with the largest revenues from Boeing, Amazon and Southwest Airlines. Amazon rose from about $ 1,820 a share on March 12 to $ 2,979 today, and Southwest Airlines rose from about $ 41 to just over $ 60. global pandemic affecting air travel, “Edwards said.” So the short term is that they will be hammered, but in the long term, it will be busy in the air again. ” and in mid-April the airlines got their $ 25 billion bailout. Edwards said that while the limited information available makes it impossible to know why Crenshaw and other officials would see specific transactions in response to the trade scandal made such transactions impossible. ”Some proposals to limit the purchase of shares would make the ac such as these really diminish. For example, Senator Warren’s plan would ban the buying and selling of individual stocks, and allow only members to track markets through index funds, ”he said. “Another proposal is to oblige lawmakers to disclose their trading plans in advance, which is what executives of listed companies are already doing. That would reduce the likelihood or suspicion that they are using private information or their own legislative powers to their advantage. Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, told The Daily Beast in November that lawmakers in the public’s confidence should not. “It’s nearly impossible to make decisions that affect an industry and then receive a personal financial benefit without appearing to have a conflict of interest,” Payne said. “Even when officials rely on financial advisers to make trading decisions on their behalf, the perception of conflicts of interest persists as the public does not know if there are winks and nods that trigger the trades.” Last week, Business Insider reported that Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), a transparency advocate, had failed to disclose dozens of stock deals over the course of 2020. Malinowski, who loves Perdue – but unlike Crenshaw – claims an outside financial advisor conducts his trades independently, said his time in the barrell fueled his appetite for reform. “This reinforces my view that members of Congress should not be invested in the stock market or, if they are, they should not have a view of the stocks they own.” Malinowski later told NJ.com. “Inevitably, even if the decisions are made by an investment firm without input from Congressman, this perception of impact may exist because what we do in Congress affects every aspect of the economy.” stocks, currently. Aside from the March transactions, he only owns shares in Starbucks, Alphabet – Google’s parent company – and a small stake in Schlumberger, a global oilfield services provider primarily based in Europe with a branch in Houston. The energy-dependent metropolis is also home to Kinder Morgan, but the offices of both companies are just off the lines of Crenshaw’s gerrymandered district. The crafts intersect with Crenshaw’s government work, particularly in the energy field. The oil and gas industry contributed a total of $ 453,247 to its reelection efforts in 2020 and was its top patron in terms of PAC donations. And while this may not have resulted in a direct conflict of interest last year, it may no longer be the case: On January 21, the Republican leadership of the House of Crenshaw stepped down from his Homeland Security and Budget committee duties and moved him to the committee for energy and Commerce. Read more on The Daily Beast. Do you have a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our top stories delivered to your inbox every day. Register now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside takes a deeper look at the stories that matter to you. Find out more.