The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a non-partisan ethics watchdog organization, demanded an investigation into Democrat Rep. Kathy Manning’s (D-NC) stock transactions after she allegedly failed to disclose up to $1.25 million in stocks adequately and possibly presented a conflict of interest.
The watchdog filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) asking to probe into Manning for failing to adequately disclose 51 trades she and her spouse made last year worth between $275,051 and $1.25 million. She only filed a periodic transaction report on February 11 — which included many tech stocks, including Meta, Amazon, Netflix, and Nvidia — that showed the couple was trading stocks throughout 2021, starting in January, and subsequently failed to follow the 45-day reporting requirement.
Manning is required to submit a periodic transaction report with the clerk in the House of Representatives within 30 to 45 days of stock transitions over $1,000, made on behalf of themselves or their spouses under the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012.
The complaint explained that the trades from Manning and her spouse are directly related to congressional actions and her official duties. Several of the tech company’s stocks she reported could have been impacted by the tech-focused antitrust bills in Congress. The congresswoman was one of eight representatives that signed a letter to delay the package of antitrust legislation from moving forward in the House Judiciary Committee.
FACT’s Executive Director, Kendra Arnold, slammed the congresswoman in a press release:
The OCE must act to ensure compliance with the most fundamental ethics requirements to maintain public trust. In cases where a Member not only fails to make timely disclosures and the Member’s stock trades were related to official action, the OCE must investigate both the conflict of interest concerns and late disclosure violations. We urge the OCE to immediately investigate this situation in which Rep. Manning’s personal stock trades and official action seemingly overlapped.
“This law is extremely important and it must be strictly enforced to determine whether a Member has used nonpublic information for profit,” FACT’s complaint said. “The failure of Members to follow the most basic ethics rules they created leads to public distrust in our elected officials as a whole.”
“There is no excuse for violating this law [STOCK Act], and if Members were allowed to claim they did not know about transitions then the would be completely ineffectual and unenforceable,” the complained added. “The OCE must act to ensure compliance with the most fundamental ethics requirements and to maintain the public’s trust.”
In 2012, Congress quickly passed the STOCK Act and signed it into law after receiving substantial bipartisan support in both chambers. The legislation was introduced and promptly signed into law thanks to Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer, who in 2011 released Throw Them All Out, exposing corruption in the highest echelons of elected life.
Schweizer’s book, which exposed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and many others, revealed corruption concerns among Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, forcing Congress into adopting the STOCK Act that implemented stricter reporting and ethics requirements.
A full copy of the FACT’s complaint against Manning can be found here.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.
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