Pelosi's investments questioned in CBS report

[Locutus]

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is the subject of a report on the stock investments of members of Congress that is to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes."

The San Francisco Democrat and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, were questioned separately at their weekly news conferences Nov. 3 by reporter Steve Kroft. Neither had granted Kroft's previous requests for interviews.

Kroft asked both leaders about stock transactions they made while Congress was considering legislation that could affect the financial and insurance industries. Pelosi and Boehner vigorously denied any connection.

Laws against insider trading - making stock bets based on information the public doesn't have - do not apply to Congress. Studies have shown that stock portfolios on Capitol Hill outperform the market. Legislation that would ban insider trading by members and staffers has languished.
Kroft asked Pelosi why she and her investor husband, Paul Pelosi, bought an initial public offering of stock in Visa, the San Francisco-based credit card company, in March of 2008.

The same month, former House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, which would have given merchants the power to negotiate lower fees with credit card companies. The bill, hostile to the credit card industry, was passed by the committee but never brought to the floor. Pelosi was speaker at the time, and controlled which legislation came to a vote.

The Pelosis bought the Visa stock in three transactions totaling $1 million to $5 million, according to financial disclosure reports. The first was the IPO, followed by two other purchases of the stock at higher prices, Pelosi said.

Pelosi said the Conyers bill had no chance of being signed by then-President George W. Bush. She said she brought even tougher legislation, the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., to passage after President Obama took office.
Pelosi said the credit card industry spent $3 million in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Maloney in 2010.

"First of all, what you are contending is not true," Pelosi said at her news briefing last week. "But second of all, we are very proud of our record of what happened."

Kroft asked what was untrue given that the Pelosis had bought the Visa stock two years earlier.
"Well, I have many investments ... I will hold my record in fighting the credit card companies, as a speaker of the House or as a member of Congress, up against anyone." Pelosi said. " We had passed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights. I don't know what your point is."

Kroft then asked whether there was an appearance of a conflict of interest. "No, it only has the appearance if you decide that you are going to elaborate on a false premise," Pelosi said. "But it is not true, and that is that."
When Kroft said, "I don't understand what part is not true," Pelosi replied, "That I would act upon an investment."




more


Pelosi's investments questioned in CBS report

Questioning Pelosi: Steve Kroft heads to D.C. - 60 Minutes Overtime - CBS News


Congress: Trading stock on inside information? - YouTube

 

[damngrumpy]

Interesting, she bought stock but she also continued to pursue legislation designed to
restrict their profits or the way they abused their customers. I don't care for this lady
at all, but then I look at the Republicans and these days it would seem if you had a
room full of Republicans you still wouldn't have a single functioning brain.
I point to the Tea Party. Had the Republicans stood back and lost some seats to the
radicals, today they would still have some respect. They jumped on the bandwagon
to get Obama, and today the steam has run out of the Tea Party because people have
figured them out.
Pelosi's finances may or may not be in order, if she is guilty of an offence she should
face the music, if this turns out to be, a non issue the Republicans will be made to look
real bad. Remember, the Democrats are good at retaliation and retaliate they will if it
turns out this is a story with no dishonest activity. Dishonesty and breaking the law are
sometimes two different things, and unfortunately politics is a prime example.

 

[Ron in Regina]

I'd have though (assumed {ass/u/me....yeah, I know}) that someone in that position
would have their financial porfolio placed in a trust , for an arms length optic as a
minimum, for their term of office in a position where they could influence the outcome
of decisions regarding the outcome pertaining to legislation and their personal wealth.

Guess I was wrong to assume that was already in place.

 

[taxslave]

I'd have though (assumed {ass/u/me....yeah, I know}) that someone in that position
would have their financial porfolio placed in a trust , for an arms length optic as a
minimum, for their term of office in a position where they could influence the outcome
of decisions regarding the outcome pertaining to legislation and their personal wealth.

Guess I was wrong to assume that was already in place.

It is in Canada. Must be a blind trust as well so your BiL cannot hold your trust funds. I thought this was the law in the US as well. This is one of the reasons it is so hard to get good people into politics even though there are good reasons for this law.

 

[Tonington]

I'd have though (assumed {ass/u/me....yeah, I know}) that someone in that position
would have their financial porfolio placed in a trust , for an arms length optic as a
minimum, for their term of office in a position where they could influence the outcome
of decisions regarding the outcome pertaining to legislation and their personal wealth.

Guess I was wrong to assume that was already in place.

Supreme Court Justices in the US hold stock too. Other journalists have noted that federal judges make rulings all the time under situations you or I would probably say is not kosher.

 

[Icarus27k]

Important fact that almost blows this whole news report into meaningless:

According to the House Ethics Committee, members owning stock in publicly traded companies isn't really that unethical and doesn't normally lead to any conflicts of interest.

 

[The Old Medic]

Congress, during the Johnson era (when it was TOTALLY CONTROLLED BY DEMOCRATS) specifically exempted members of Congress from Conflict of Interest Laws, that apply to virtually everyone in the Administrative and legislative Branches of Government (and Federal Judges ARE covered by those laws). There have been numerous amendments to those laws over the years, tightening their restrictions, but Congress is largely unaffected by them.

And I hate to tell damn grumpy, but the "Tea Party" is far from finished, and it still has a LOT of influence. The only people claiming it is finished are the ultra-leftists and the media, who are actively campaigning against any form of Conservatism or any checks on the powers of the Federal Government.

 

[Icarus27k]

And here's how the "60 Minutes" report is going over:

"60 MISSES: CBS gets it wrong"

Honest graft, as "60 Minutes" calls it, is a serious problem in Washington, with a massive industry called "political intelligence" devoted to digging up inside regulatory and congressional information so traders and companies can take advantage of it.
But by swinging and missing at Boehner and Pelosi, "60 Minutes" undermined its case.
The CBS News program flagged Boehner (R-Ohio) for buying health insurance stocks shortly before the public health insurance option was killed as part of health care reform. Boehner, of course, strongly opposed the public option as a matter of ideology, as did the entire House GOP.
The public option wasn't killed by Boehner, who had no real power in the previous Congress; it was done in by Blue Dog Democrats and a White House that didn't push for it. The public option returned from the dead repeatedly before finally being laid to rest -- and there's no reason to think that Boehner had any better insight into what was happening within the House Democratic caucus than anybody else reading news reports at the time.
And as Boehner says in the "60 Minutes" segment, the trade was decided upon and carried out by Boehner's longtime broker without any input from him. In context, it seems even less suspicious: Around the same time, Boehner broker purchased a range of other blue chip stocks, not just health care companies, a defense that a Boehner spokesman reiterated to the Huffington Post.
"The idea that the Republican Leader in the House opposed the 'public option' -- policy favored by the left of the left -- for personal profit is, frankly, stupid," a GOP aide, who didn't want to be quoted criticizing CBS, said.
Similarly, the knock on Pelosi (D-Calif.) leaves out critical details. "60 Minutes" charges Pelosi with purchasing 5,000 shares of Visa stock as part of an exclusive initial public offering and implies that her financial connection to the credit card industry had something to do with the halting of credit card industry reform.
"Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband have participated in at least eight IPOs. One of those came in 2008, from Visa, just as a troublesome piece of legislation that would have hurt credit card companies began making its way through the House. Undisturbed by a potential conflict of interest, the Pelosi's purchased 5,000 shares of Visa at the initial price of 44 dollars. Two days later it was trading at $64. The credit card legislation never made it to the floor of the House," CBS reports.
But CBS leaves out that fact that the bill passed out of committee at the very end of the legislative session, as Congress was dealing with the Wall Street implosion and bailout, and that the chamber then adjourned until the election. More importantly, Democrats didn't have the votes for it in the Senate and the notion of that President Bush would have signed it if they did is far-fetched.
CBS goes on to report: "Congresswoman Pelosi pointed out that the tough credit card legislation eventually passed, but it was two years later and was initiated in the Senate."
The implication is, apparently, that the Senate forced Pelosi's hand. Throughout 2009 and 2010, the House consistently passed stronger and more progressive legislation than the Senate, but in the scenario laid down by CBS, it was the other way around when it came the credit card reform. But in 2008, before the stock transaction, the House had already passed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights over the objections of industry lobbyists.
"Tonight's report failed to note that the legislation in question in this story was reported out of the Judiciary Committee on October 3, 2008 -- the day the House was consumed in passing TARP and also the last day the House was in session before the November election," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said. "It failed to note than in September 2008, the House passed the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights. In the next Congress, the House and Senate passed and President Obama signed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights and the Dodd-Frank legislation, which included a stronger, more direct approach to addressing swipe fees."

 

[Highball]

Nancy Pelosi is living proof of the factory that organized crime does have an active role in US politics. In my city I see tee shirts worn by people from all walks of life that have a photo image of her on the front and the statement, "It's time we found Nanna a rest home!" Fitting. The entire California Congressional delegation is an embarrassment to this once great state.

 

[The Old Medic]

California overwhelmingly elects these people to the Congress. Just one of the many reasons why I left the State that I had lived in for almost 50 years of my life.