News · Press Release

NEW: Rob Bresnahan Complains He’ll “Lose Money and Go Broke” if He Stops Trading Stocks While in Congress

Bresnahan campaigned on banning congressional stock trading and pledged to put his assets into a blind trust – but has broken both promises

Rob Bresnahan has a new excuse for why he won’t fulfill his promises to NEPA voters: He’s worried about his own bottom line.

In a new interview with WVIA, the congressman is pressed on why he simply won’t stop trading stocks while in Congress. Bresnahan makes a stunning admission, confessing that he won’t stop trading because he doesn’t want to “just leave it all in the accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke.” Never mind the fact that Bresnahan reported “assets ranging from about $18.8 million to almost $77 million.”

It’s hard to get more out of touch than that.

DCCC Spokesperson Eli Cousin:
“Multi-millionaire Rob Bresnahan is full of shit. He campaigned on a promise to ban congressional stock trading, but is now saying that he must continue his prolific trading in order to prevent himself from going broke. He doesn’t care about his constituents – he only cares about his bottom line.”

  • Bresnahan, who as a candidate last year called for banning members of Congress from trading stocks, has faced sharp criticism from a Democratic political action committee for continuing to trade stocks as a congressman.
  • Theoretically, Bresnahan could order his financial advisers to stop trading his stocks, but he does not plan to do that.
  • “And then do what with it?” he asked in an interview with WVIA News this week. “Just leave it all in the accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?”
  • The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee renewed its criticism of Bresnahan’s stance on stock trades Wednesday, calling it “a broken promise” to voters.
  • “Rob Bresnahan has violated the public trust by campaigning on a pledge to clean up Washington, only to become the poster-child of the swamp,” committee spokesman Eli Cousin said.
  • In April, the New York Times reported that Bresnahan turned into one of Congress’ most frequent stock traders since taking office, despite calling for the ban in a March 29, 2024, letter to the editor to The Citizens’ Voice newspaper in Wilkes-Barre.
  • “Some of the most prolific traders in the country serve in Congress,” Bresnahan wrote as a candidate. “Whether or not they have done something wrong, the idea that we can buy and sell stocks while voting on legislation that will have a direct impact on these companies is wrong and needs to come to an end immediately. This is the topic of bipartisan legislation right now in the House that I would happily co-sponsor.”
  • The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which helps the party’s House candidates, accused Bresnahan of “saying one thing on the campaign trail, but … now doing another thing in Washington.”
  • As a candidate last year, he filed a form that covers Jan. 1, 2023, through July 14, 2024. That form showed Bresnahan had assets ranging from about $18.8 million to almost $77 million and income during that period of between about $1.7 million and $8.4 million.

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