5 days ago
Ethics Panel Rebukes Congressman for Wife's Stock Trade in Firm He Helped
The House Ethics Committee on Friday rebuked a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and urged him and his wife to sell their holdings in a steel company in his district after a four-year investigation into a stock trade found that he had violated the House's official code of conduct.
In its report, the committee cited Representative Mike Kelly, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, for a 'lack of candor' in its inquiry into 2020 trades by his wife, Victoria, involving a local steel company that was seeking government intervention to prevent layoffs or the closure of its plant in Butler, Pa., in Mr. Kelly's district.
Mr. Kelly was actively lobbying the Trump administration for trade protections for the plant, newly purchased by the company Cleveland-Cliffs, and learned that the Commerce Department was going to intervene in favor of the firm. The next day — five days before the Commerce action was made public — his wife purchased 5,000 shares of Cleveland-Cliffs stock. She later sold the stock at a nearly $65,000 profit, a roughly 285-percent gain.
Members of Congress are prohibited from using confidential information for financial benefit and must disclose transactions by them or close family members valued at more than $1,000, but efforts to tighten those rules or bar lawmakers from trading stocks altogether have so far been unsuccessful. That has created an environment rife with potential conflicts of interest, in which many lawmakers who are active in the stock market have unique insight into or influence over companies whose shares they are buying and selling.
The report said because of a lack of cooperation from Mrs. Kelly, it was ' ultimately unable to confirm whether Mrs. Kelly received nonpublic information from her husband or what her intent was in purchasing the Cleveland-Cliffs stock.' It did say, though, that the transaction risked creating an appearance of impropriety and self-dealing.
'Representative Kelly's conduct with respect to Cleveland-Cliffs and his wife's stock purchase raised significant concerns for the committee, even if it did not rise to the level of insider trading or clearly violate conflict of interest rules,' the report said. It also said that during his committee interview, 'some of Representative Kelly's answers to key questions were inconsistent both during his testimony and with his prior written responses to committee requests for information.'
The report also said the committee was alarmed by the fact that Mrs. Kelly had made additional purchases of the company's stock in 2024 when the congressman was again working on an issue of importance to the company.
'Mrs. Kelly's subsequent purchase of Cleveland-Cliffs stock despite the ongoing investigation, and Representative Kelly's failure to timely disclose that purchase and answer questions relating to it, are yet more examples of his failure to recognize the gravity of the allegations in this case and indicate a lack of respect for the committee's role and processes,' the report said. It said he 'has not demonstrated sufficient appreciation for the harm to the institution caused by the appearance of impropriety.'
In a statement, Mr. Kelly, who was first elected in 2010, said he and his family 'look forward to getting this distraction behind us.'
'Throughout this process, I have fought for the 1,400 workers at the plant, I've spoken with these workers, and they appreciate the hard work we have done to fight for those jobs and for Butler,' Mr. Kelly said in the statement.
