About half the nation’s state attorneys general are pressuring online retail giant Shopify to curb “unlawful conduct” and “pervasive illegality” by e-cigarette sellers the company platforms.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro appears to consider Shopify a buy.
The former Fox News personality-turned-law enforcer recently invested up to $15,000 of her own money in Shopify stock, according to a new Office of Government Ethics disclosure document reviewed by NOTUS. It’s part of a flurry of stock trades Pirro has made during the five months since her Senate confirmation to one of the nation’s highest-profile prosecution posts.
“U.S. Attorney Pirro takes her disclosure and ethics responsibilities seriously,” Tim Lauer, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, told NOTUS in an email. “According to the U.S. Attorney’s special counsel for ethics, USA Pirro has no conflicts with any of the identified entities.”
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Ethics officials at the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for United States Attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment, and Shopify did not respond to requests for comment.
Marrisa Geller, a spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, which co-signed a November letter to Shopify and is separate from Pirro’s office, declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Connecticut Office of Attorney General, which is another signatory, also declined to comment. A dozen other attorneys general offices that are pressing Shopify did not respond to requests for comment.
Republicans and Democrats inside and outside of Congress are pushing to ban federal lawmakers — and potentially executive branch officials such as Pirro — from trading stocks at all.
Proponents of congressional stock-ban bills argue that government officials must hold themselves to higher standards than the general public when it comes to avoiding financial conflicts, be they real or perceived. They also cite numerous examples of government officials violating existing stock-trade disclosure laws.
Republican leaders have pledged to advance their own version of such legislation this year, although its provisions may only apply to the legislative branch.
Pirro took steps to avoid financial conflicts of interest just before she was confirmed by the Senate. She resigned her positions with Fox News Channel, WABC Radio and Ave Maria School of Law and agreed to divest her financial interests in several companies, including thousands of shares in Ares Capital Corporation, investment house Barings BDC Inc. and Blackstone Infrastructure Strategies LP, according to an ethics agreement she signed in July with the Office of Government Ethics.
But unlike some members of Congress, Pirro didn’t voluntarily stop trading stocks altogether. Rather, she made at least 16 individual stock trades between late September and late October, according to Office of Government Ethics records.
At least two of the companies in which Pirro invested faced Department of Justice investigations during President Donald Trump’s first term.
On Oct. 23, for example, Pirro bought up to $50,000 worth of stock in European aviation company Airbus SE. In 2020, Airbus paid a combined $3.9 billion in penalties to resolve a bribery case brought by the United States, the United Kingdom and France. The company’s U.S. subsidiary is also a major Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security contractor, having secured hundreds of millions of dollars in awards this decade, according to federal records.
On Oct. 13, Pirro bought up to $50,000 worth of stock in Chipotle Mexican Grill, selling it nine days later after the stock’s share price closed slightly higher.
In 2020, Chipotle paid $25 million to resolve a federal criminal case involving alleged foodborne illnesses.
During June and July, while Pirro was serving as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, she made more than 200 individual stock trades, according to Office of Government Ethics records.
They include tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of purchases in the stocks of Facebook parent Meta, Google parent Alphabet, Netflix, Tesla, Amazon and defense contractor Honeywell.
“In the event that an actual or potential conflict of interest arises during my appointment, I will consult with an agency ethics official and take the measures necessary to resolve the conflict, such as recusal from the particular matter or divestiture of an asset,” Pirro wrote in her ethics agreement, which she amended in November to explain she wasn’t able to divest “in a timely manner” two investments she had promised to dump.
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, interim vice president of policy and government affairs for nonpartisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said Pirro could “easily choose to go above and beyond the letter” of ethics rules, whether it concerns her Shopify investment — or any other.
“She should make sure to not invest in any company she could have any insight into,” Hedtler-Gaudette said. “It just looks bad and casts a pall over what she’s doing in her official capacity.”
Pirro joins FBI Director Kash Patel among leading Department of Justice officials who’ve made notable stock trades during their time in public service.
In September, NOTUS reported that Patel purchased up to $50,000 worth of Krispy Kreme stock in May — around the time the FBI began investigating a ransomware group known as Play on suspicion it breached Krispy Kreme’s data systems.
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