NEW YORK TIMES: Rob Bresnahan’s “Stock Trades Draw More Scrutiny” As He Has “Appeared To Benefit From The Consequences Of His Own Votes”

Read the latest on Bresnahan’s stock trading below:

• Over the first several months of his freshman term in Washington, Representative Rob Bresnahan Jr., Republican of Pennsylvania, became one of the most active stock traders in Congress, despite having campaigned for his seat on a promise to end stock trading by lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
• Now Mr. Bresnahan’s trading is attracting more scrutiny after he made several transactions that appeared to benefit from the consequences of his own votes on the House floor.
• […] some Republicans privately concede that the issue could hurt him in his highly competitive district as they attempt to hold onto their slim House majority.
• It is not just the striking number of trades that is dogging Mr. Bresnahan, a wealthy former chief executive of an electrical contracting company who was a top G.O.P. recruit. As of Thursday, he had made 626 stock trades since taking office, according to Capitol Trades, a site that monitors the stock market activity of lawmakers. That number made him the second-most-active trader this Congress.
• It is also the possibility — or at least the appearance of one — that he could be benefiting financially from votes he made in Congress in favor of elements of President Trump’s domestic policy agenda that could end up harming his constituents.
• On March 27, for instance, Mr. Bresnahan sold off between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of bonds issued by the Allegheny County Hospital Development Authority for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The sale came after a report identified 10 rural hospitals in Pennsylvania that faced immediate risk of closure, and a month after Mr. Bresnahan voted for the House budget resolution that paved the way for large Medicaid cuts.
• Mr. Bresnahan’s May 15 sale of up to $15,000 of stock in Centene, the largest Medicaid plan provider in the country, also drew scrutiny. Centene’s stock plummeted by about 40 percent after Mr. Trump signed the domestic policy bill into law on July 4.
• Mr. Bresnahan also announced that he was beginning the process of establishing a blind trust for his own assets […] But he has not followed through on that promise, complaining that the House Ethics Committee was making it difficult for him to wall off his stock holdings. At the same time, his trade volume continued to grow.
• Mr. Bresnahan balked at the idea of simply halting his stock trading. “And then do what with it?” he said in the interview. “Just leave it all in the accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?”
• A spokeswoman […] would not say whether he had stopped, or intended to stop, trading stocks.
• More than 80 percent of voters support banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, according to public polling.
• “His prolific stock trading is more than just a broken promise,” said Eli Cousin, a spokesman for the D.C.C.C. “It’s political malpractice and a scandal of his own making that will define his time in Washington and be a major reason why he will lose his seat.”

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