New Jersey Democrat Congressman Tom Malinowski is under fire after an AP report showed he had made over $1,000,000 in stock trades during the global COVID-19 pandemic, buying and selling healthcare stocks. Today, Malinowski denied that his trades were insider trading.
In fact, Malinowski said he didn’t make those trades. Somebody else made those trades.
“The charge that Congressman Malinowski abused his office is categorically false,” the Democrat said in a statement. “These trades were made solely by his broker based on publicly available information and without Congressman Malinowski’s input of prior knowledge.”
The true question at hand in AP’s reporting is, should Members of Congress and other elected officials be held to a higher standard? Congressman Malinowski believes the answer should be yes to ensure trust between the public and their elected representatives.
The company that hosted Malinowski’s million dollar stock trades while most New Jerseyans were out of work and struggling to get unemployment backed up the congressman who holds a sizeable stock portfolio with the politician.
“Gagnon Securities LLC is an SEC registered investment adviser that has full discretion over its advisory client accounts, including the account maintained by Congressman Malinowski,” the company said. “Gagnon Securities make all trading decisions in discretionary client accounts, and does so based on publicly available information as well as proprietary analysis that forms our investment strategy for all our clients.”