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these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. we are joined here on the washington journal by dave with insider here to talk about members of congress and financial potential conflicts of interest, the stock act and what may be next in terms of financial guidance for members of congress. first one to ask you in terms of what are the current rules governing members for stock trading and financial trades like that? >> guest: you mentioned the stock act and that is effectively the rule of the road at the congress of self passed for congress about a decade ago. and this was in response to them sort of having scandals in the d situations that have taken place in the immediate years before with lawmakers not necessarily doing with personal funds what would at least in the opinion of

many be the best thing for the public's interest. so it really kind of tackled three things. number one, it addressed conflicts of interest where lawmakers would be investing their personal money in ways that could conflict or contrast in a not so great way with the public a decisions they are makg on behalf of the body of politic. another one was insider-trading where the lawmakers would or in some certain cases have used information by being a member of congress and then taking that information and having it inform personal financial decisions that they were making buying stocks or otherwise. then the third part of that is transparency, giving the public more knowledge, more information, more details and all of that more quickly so that they can see what the lawmakers were doing so effectively adding

another layer of security to the process to make sure voters for example had this kind oft information and if they didn't like the idea of a member of congress who sat on the house armed services committee purchasing stock in boeing or one of the defense contractors that relies on government funding to do its business and government funding could increase its stock prices they would have the information heavailable at least in theory d ina relatively quick amount of time. >> for children or his wife or his brother-in-law who brought the seams with of stock, would that in any way be transparent to the public? >> the stock act addressed to that and not only the lawmakers subject to these rules, but the

spells, the lawmakers dependent children are also subject to the rules so they are all subject to the law and what they have to do is not only report their own personal stock trades but those ofsp their spouses and dependent children and it's sort of an extreme example of this that we see pretty frequently right now how the speaker doesn't personally trade stocks but her husband is aks venture capitalit modeling in his work trades stocks but personally in a way that would of course not only benefit him but to benefit his spouse who happens to be the speaker and trades tens of ramillions in stock and stock tooptions every year and we know that based on the reports nancy pelosi herself certifies and assigns. we are picking on her and the every member of congress. >> what are the ramifications into the enforcement of the

stock act? >> it's fairly strict that if you violate the provisions of the stock act, number one, you can get sent before the house and senate ethics committee to reprimand or even in extreme situations kick a member out, very rare and never has happened at least in this application. also there is potential criminal liability where the department could investigate a member if they were deemed to be acting in a criminally illegal sort of way and they have in a notable incident involving senator richard burr who fell in their and all these could happen

simultaneously. but the penaltiess have been incredibly light. the investigations that have taken place is almost universally led to little or nothing happening and the sort of concern that's been raised especially in the past many months what good is the law if f ultimately it doesn't have any teeth. if they may not be compelled to do the rightht thing or they may get involved in activity that isn't going to be becoming of them. >> you opened the door for the weakness in the stock act, the 10-year-old law now. define some of the other weaknesses in a way that you think need to be addressed by congress. >> one of the fundamental issues is the third prong that i described which is the transparency aspect is sort of foundational element of the act because if you don't know what a member is doing, how the representative so and so is

investing the personal finances, you can't tell there is a conflict of interest and what we found in the reporting along with other media organizations use 71 examples we found since last year of current members of congress who violated the stock act disclosure provisions. sometimes it's relatively minor. they might be a few days late passed a 45 day deadline for disclosing any purchase or any exchange of stock or financial implements. but in some cases it's been months or years since the deadline that congress has established for the rules of the road created for congress. so when you have a situation like that and we found some situations that involve hundreds

of stock trade being months late and involving potentially millions or even tens of millions of dollars in a couple of cases and the only penalty for that, which has come to bear is a 200-dollar late filing fee and all the cases that i just mentioned is the extent of the penalty that we found. it's too weak and there are no ramifications if you can go and rob a bank and a police officer obisn't going to chase after you you might keep robbing the bank. but in perfect parallel you can kind of see where this is going. >> a deputy washington bureau chief, the organization has been relentless in reporting on this and this is as mentioned at the headline of one of the more recent pieces. they violated the law for the

insider-trading and stock conflicts of interests. we welcome your comments. 748-8000 for democrats, 202-748-8001 for republicans and for independents and others, 202-748-8002.. okay, so it isn't working so what's next, what's been proposed to fix it? >> guest: back in december we published a project called conflicted congress that involved more than two dozen different articles and investigations, stories, data visualizations to try to make this explain what conflicts of interest or perceived conflicts of interest were in play and to reveal i many members of congres had engaged in this type of activity or had not for the ofinances as we described. we also found many senior-level congressional staffers who are also subject to the stock act

and have been very late or failed to disclose their activity. whenen that published we asked nancy pelosi at a press conference brian metzger on our team what do you think of this, should members of congress ultimately be able to trade stock and play the market while they are on capitol hill and the answer she gave at the time was, and i'man paraphrasing, it's a freera market economy and membes of congress should be able to participate in that economy so in essence, she endorsed the status quo. what happened after that is kind of a curious confluence of the facts. you had on the left members of congress such as alexandria, the representative from new york and elizabeth warren the senator from massachusetts saying that's not good and that's not what we want.

we want to do something different. we need to band members of congress from trading stocks because the current rules of the road or not working and then you have some republicans who also were effectively saying the same thing. you had a josh hawley the senator from missouri, later donald trump and kevin mccarthy more or less saying we need the absolute consideration of banning them from trading stocks. you would never put those representatives and politicians in the same conversations on the same page but nevertheless, that is wheree they were landing and to the question you asked where do things stand now and in the interim between december and today has been a series of pieces of legislation by democrats and republicans that have struck on thatt very issue saying we need to do something different. we need to band members from trading stocks and band their family members from trading stocks as well and around the

margins there have been differences and the approach. there'vedi been questions as to should this extend beyond congress, the supreme court justices were other members of thee government that have had questions about whether it should just apply to a member of congress or one's family. right now we kind of have three different avenues. we have the senate, the house looking additive to the leadership level and then sort of a coalition of the more rank-and-file members that are aggressively pursuing this. >> has the speaker, as you pointed out, her husband has made a serious stock trades. has she committed to taking up legislation when it's final? >> it's fair to say she had in evolution in the position between december and february where she warmed up to the idea at least in principle saying more or less you can go forward

and we will consider legislation that led to him april congressional hearing that addressed the issue in a public forum and fashion and then many months of debate that hasn't yet led to actual black-and-white text ready for consideration on the house floor but that is where advocates hope that here in september the congress is going to get all of the other priorities. >> you mentioned senator burr. some of the potential conflicts of interest. he is retiring obviously as the seat is open. what is the issue with senator burr? >> this isn't just applicable to but other members of congress in the time that there were lots of trades being made

sometimes and very rapid fashion basically in january february and march of 2020. the pandemic was beginning to sink its teeth into the united states. what happened with others is the trades looked if you are being generous curious and the idea was among some people who were saying what's going on here though there may have been or the suspicion was that person of congress was indeed using information that they had gathered asd a member of congres to either themselves make stock trades were ordered up stock trades that could have benefited them because of inside knowledge about the way that the economy was working, the way vaccines were being developed and what we had reported after the fact later on is that we found dozens of examples of members of

congress and in the senate democrats and republicans purchasing around that time it might not have been typical for them to purchase pfizer, letter or not, johnson & johnson, makers of cleaning products, shelfstable foods. we could go on and on but ultimately, the stock purchases of the trades that werehe being made were such that there were questions being asked about whether these were just trades being made in the normal course and in essence the members of congress knew something about what was going on or decisions that were going to be made on capitol hill that could have been beneficial to the stock portfolio. >> it certainly is on the minds

of the voters after you've talked about senator burr. this is sherry beasley running for the seat in north carolina. years that ad. >> i will admit i've never worked in washington but to me theree is a lot going on that makes no sense. sixty-four members of congress, republicans and democrats have broken the law to stop inside stock trading at washington yetn refuses to do anything about it. senators should be working for you, not themselves. >> an issue in north carolina. are you surprised there's not a bigger issue nationally? >> there've been others where this has come up and it's something that's probably goingg to rise to the pocketbook issue. the economy, the pain that people are feeling at the pump and other issues that of course

are part and parcel of any campaign but particularly the midterm and the fact ads are going up about this issue and other members of congress runningou on it. as a political party you will on the republican side, the campaign committee they've been ervery aggressive against democratic members. the to disclose that back in

2020 and 2021, so it has become a campaign issue. but still nevertheless it's coming up in the 2022 midterm as we have seen in many years. >> your calls areea welcome for the members of congress and their potential conflicts of interest. 202-748-8000 for democrats, 202-748-8001 for republicans, and for independents and others, 202-748-8002. let's go to the democratic line first in columbus, ohio. you are first up. >> caller: hi. my understanding is the members of congress the same as anybody else. basically. [inaudible]

>> host: >> guest: they brought up an interesting wrinkle in this. any member of congress has the ability today to create a blind trust. now, what is a blind trust at least as congress defines it? congress gives any member of the ability to create what is called a qualified blind trust. thed trust where effectively yu give over to an independent third-party your financial dealings. you seize control of your own finances, your own personal investments to the third-party. if something for the documents of the agreement are made public. the senate or the house ethics committee has to approve it. it is somewhat time consuming. it can be quite expensive and perhaps not surprisingly, there's only been a very limited number of members of congressed including we just mentioned tom, he also went this route after he had run into some trouble. and othersth who have gone ahead and have taken this step.

but the vast majority of members of congress owned. and so, the question of do members of congress have to play by a different set of rules than just average americans, they do. the stock act is a different set of rules that members of congress are subject to, and i should also note to some extent there are federal walls for congressional candidates that have to at least record annual financial transactions disclosures that some of them have as we have reported as well not been very good about disclosing in that application with really no penalty coming to bear as well. >> host: question on twitter's is why the constant reference to nancy pelosi, has speaker pelosi actually violated any law? >> guest: speaker pelosi, number one she is the speaker of the house. so with great power comes extra scrutiny. her husband also is trading in a way that most members of

congressei or their spouses dont when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars, or in the case of paul pelosi, tens of millions of dollars worth of trades in a very short period of time. then, as a reporter and a journalist, we are going to absolutely scrutinize his trades to understand what they are and whether they are in any way, shape or form in conflict with the decisions that nancy pelosi would, herself, be making. and one examplema is when the ts act came about just a couple of months ago dealing with some trades involving nvdia and he ultimately decided to sell the purchase that he made very quickly after making the purchase in response to some controversy that ultimately came to bear as a result of the

activity on capitol hill. whether it was intentional or not coming into play at the same time when he was making the stock trades. >> host: do you think members are clear on the current rules were what constitutes the conflict i of interest? >> yes and no. some seem attuned to what the rules are and follow them very closely. we are focused on those that have broken the rules or who don'te seem to understand fully the rules. but in all fairness, the members of congress who do play by the rules some are diligent about it. i've talked to many of them and they say yes it is a big priority for me and for this office. we are going to play by the rules and do it by the books and they do. so there's no problem with them. they've never gone crosswise with this law that congress passed in 2012. others seem to be pretty oblivious frankly and don't really know that it is something that applies to them. they don't know what they need to disclose and when and this

came up when the house ethics committee just a couple of weeks back lead to three members and ultimately for off the book who violated the disclosure provisions one a republican from texas, a democrat from new york, republican from new york and all of them even though you could demonstrate that they had a broken the rules and you could read the rules and come. to their actions and they violated it, the house ethics committee said this wasn't a knowing and willful violation that this was just a mistake. we are going to give them the benefit of the doubt. and beyond paying just the standard 200 a dollar late filing fee, there were no other ramifications and they were given basically the free and clear to go on with their

business without having any type of reprimand organizational penalty beyond the one they already assumed. >> host: on twitter, mr. levinthal, why aren't all financial stock holdings by members made public so the public would be aware of all conflicts of interests? what is the public's right to know in this area? >> guest: that strikes to the heart of the disclosure aspect of this act, which is an acronym for stop trading on congressional knowledge act. the disclosure provision provides and answer to the colors question, the riders question, and is is that yes, absolutely. if you make a stock trade, if you trade in crypto currency, if you make other type of realistic trades there is a whole sort oft schedule, a menu of different types of financial trades that are subject to the act, if you make any of those trades as a member of congress, you do have toto disclose them in a certain schedule of time, which also

depends on the type ofim trade r whatnot. i won't go into the weeds too much there, but the bottom line is that they do have to do this. the problem becomes, or the problem arises when they don't do it. and they don't follow the rules. and instead of an disclosing that and providing the transparency about their own personal financial trades, they forget or they fail to work for one reason or another, that information just doesn't come the public and that becomes a problemc because you can't judge a member on whether they do actually have a real or perceived conflict of interest if you don't have the information to make the judgment. >> host: the74 phone lines are 202-748-8000 for democrats, 202-748-8001 republicans and 202-748-8002 for independents independenceand others. we will go to mississippi on the democratic line. good morning. >> caller: good morning.

when the subject comes up, i'm just baffled because i work for federal government and one of their audit agencies, and annually we were notified, all the authors were notified that itfi was time to take their independence training, meaning we couldn't audit a contractor that we held stock for. every year automatically we were notified. we had independence training and wead had to have an independente statement. this was every year. so i don't understand how these congressmen can just, you know, overlook the fact of the disclosures. it just baffles me. but anyway, given that, as a taxpayer, i am concerned that decisions are being made in

congress based upon the congressman's portfolios, not what the american people need. so i think the whole system has to be overhauled and all these people have been there forever doing the samee thing, year afr year. it's time for a lot of those to be move on, bring on new people that have fresh ideas and about what it is you're supposed to be doing for the american people. >> host: thanks for the call. dave. >> guest: the rule for the road for the executive branch and in some cases they are more strict than you would have for the legislative branch, so that is a point to make. congress, they make the law. if they wanted to change any aspect or they wanted to make things more strict for any aspect of the government, they do have the ability to do that. that's what's being debated right now with the areas of the bills and the various committees and coalitions that are getting together to discuss whether to do exactly that between now and

the end of the current congressional session in january. it remains to be seen whether something monumentalr will happn or if nothing will happen or something in between. frankly based on lots of conversations we've been having with members of congress and their staff, it's up in the air where this is going to land. >> host: where do you get most of the information on these trainings and financialof transactions? >> guest: we look at the reports that come in every day from congress about financial transactions. there are annual reports members of congress have to file the to give a whole variety of information covering a calendar year. they usually come out mid year covering the previous year you d then for individual stock trades members of congress have to take him added to stepme into file wt are periodic transaction reports into these list details about individual stock trades were

crypto trades were other types of trades ofpt that sort. for having those sort of interim reports if a member of congress is dealing with the bill, a piece of legislation that could have some bearing on the financial interest in the public should have the right to know that information and not next year but close to real-time. members of congress would love to band members of congress and their colleagues to say at a minimum that should be almost in the disclosure and we shouldn't have to wait 45 days. it shouldit be five days. some of the diligent the day they make the trade if they do trade stock literally the same day so we know that's possible.

>> host: robert on the republican line, go ahead. >> is insider-trading against the law according to this gentle man that is a talking? the way i understood him, it is. >> guest: the penalties prescribed under the stock act or maybe less than insider-trading for those outside of congress. >> the stock act itself is explicit and if you engage in the insider-trading as a member of congress the penalties again theoretically are severe but the problem here is how do you prove that a member of congress is actually engaged in insider intrading? the burden of proof is

incredibly high and members of congress, we mentioned richard burr know there've been others the curiously timed stock trade that isn't insider-trading it's justst coincidence or i have nothing to do with it personally. my stockbroker was making the trades and i don't have any communication with him but also that is difficult to prove exactly the level of communication or direction any one member of congress were all members of congress have with their financial advisors and stockbrokers. unless you havenl that qualify d trust that we talked about earlier where literally you are signing away your personal finances to an independent third-party in an open and transparent fashion where everything is written kind of at granted for the rules of the road are going to apply to the finances, then you are taking the congresses word for it that theyor are doing the right thing

and to quote ronald reagan, there is a trust but verify aspect to it. >> host: where is the recentst instance where they've looked into a potential insider-trading and congress? >> they may have looked into it where we didn't know. what we do know is that they've never had an investigation come to the point where a member of congress has been charged under the stock act. there've been other financial related to type of activities where a member of congress has gotten into trouble but that wasn't necessarily related at all to the stock act so ten years on and here there've been no prosecutions and convictions under the stock act and criminal fashion. >> host: let's hear from nick on the democrats line. go ahead. >> caller: it's not necessarily to the congressional stock trading. it's more or less to voters.

i've goti an opinion if you tae government assistance you should give up yourur right to vote. that right there is a conflict of interest. you're getting money from the government that you shouldn't be able too vote to get more money from the government. >> guest: voting is a right that is given to people who qualify to vote. many people, government assistance would be something difficult to define in the sense that we all benefit in some way from government action, so i guess under those rules, nobody would. but i think i understand what the caller asked. ..

>> and what that is supposed to do and what it does do still is fund this presidential matching fund fund. presidential candidates for many years from the 1990s and early t 2000's would use this money that was sent by taxpayers to the fund diverted into their fund and they would use it to run their campaigns with the idea the federal government would provide the money so presidential candidateses wouldn't have to worry about fundraising as they met monday as is much as

they would otherwise and have to raisese a certain amount of money then they could go on run their campaigns george w. bush took the money. john kerry took the money john mccain in 2008. but barack obama did not because in 2008 when he was running against john mccain he thought he can raise much more many that will allow him a better chance to win the presidency then to opt into the fund which i should note for subjecting candidates to limit how much money they could make. >> it showed them not to take money that's why the fund is piling up. >> not only did they set a trend but they killed the fund no major candidate after the 2008 raise has availed themselves to this opportunity to get money fromel this fund.

so what has happened between 2008 and the present day it just continues to grow and grow. and congress which has the ability to decide do we want the money?e it just hasn't done anything we have numerous different interest with taxpayer advocate to say if you don't use it for anything then fund the taxpayers we have charities that have said a lot of people can use this money would be incredibly helpful if the government hands it over to charity which they could do or return it to the general fund to pay down government debt none of that is happen so the money since there and it continues to grow. host: at half a million

dollars. independent line good morning. >>caller: good morning. of what is a great concern the information is obviously a real problem but the big prizes clearly the regulatory capture of the agencies like the fda granting liability free protection against these horrible shots. that is the price and with the most damage is being done. how this impacts the faa and how it is compromised with these experimental shots is a real concern. turning back to previous segment, we really don't have the rule of law at the end of the day we have the rule of power.

that's my comment. it would be nice to hear a few more calls coming in i appreciate c-span. thank you very much. >> i can't speak to some of those things we have not done direct reporting on them butg there are questions of funding all over the government and how congress should use the money it has the ability in ways that are fund other aspects in our coming into another crunch period where congress has to fund the government in order to keep it open. host: the stock act quick. >> not in the sense of deeming it unconstitutional if that is anyone's question. this remains lot over ten

years there are no efforts on the horizon to undermine this law that really the issue is not so much not with the court but on capitol hill to expand the lot in a way that would more or less make it illegal for members of congress to create because some say it's just not working or they are not abiding by the modest rules that we putwe in place and have to put those in place. >> good morning. i've been looking at this for quite a few years but the student loan industry and the colleges most notably the four profit colleges the house and senate education and judiciary committee had money for years

and not just the candidates themselves but so far john boehner and mike nz have family members that run the pack and then are just flooded by the student loan industry and others. and the student loans have been recognized and uniquely stripped of bankruptcy protections, statute of limitations and turned into a license to steal. half of these members of congress when they get out of office they wind up teaching at a college. so look over the horizon what plans they have and where they would like to be in they would like to teach. quite often. it is a big mess.

i'm not sure the answer is but i appreciate your thoughts. >> bringing up the revolving door issue. >> we are talking and focusing on the personal finances and a cousin to that is t the issue of campaign finance and how do members get the money that they need to run the campaign? often that comes from corporate pacs and from the executives a very large companies to help fund campaigns to fund raise for a particularl. candidate. and many calls to reform the system and other court decisions that have allowed over the years and influxes and money coming from corporate sources are intermingling with the hard money sources coming from

other paxson individuals. does that relate directly to personal finances of directors maybe or maybe not but under the very broad heading of financial issues when it comes to the personal finances of lawmakers that are concerning to a lot of people. but we are not necessarily the best we could be for the public's interest when it comes to make sureth congress is doing the right thing. host: does the stock act we apply to members of the federal reserve who benefited knowing their actions to buy fixed income securities from specific companies quick. >> we do have a ten of time to get into a but that led to her resignation and also some scandals in that area as

well. if those are in every aspect of the federal government. ranging from nothing to quite strict so it really depends where you are in government and level of government for the rules of the road to be very confusing but it is a topic what is the potential for shenanigans. host: go to business insider.com house 71 members of congress violated the law to stop insider trading and sought conflicts of interest. deputy tree —- deputy chief dave leventhal thank you for being here.

>> thank you very much everyone i want to start by thinking that steelworkers and local union 2227 all the men and women of organized labor happy labor day this is a great day to celebrate were