As the list of lawmakers who have violated federal conflicts-of-interest and transparency rules with late stock-trade disclosures keeps getting longer, members of Congress are increasingly blaming their financial advisers for the screwups.
Rep. Dan Meuser, a Pennsylvania Republican, was almost a year late when last week he reported the sale of $750,000 to $1.5 million worth of his wife’s stock in Nvidia Corp., the computer chip company. Meuser chairs the House Committee on Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
“The mistake was made solely by my brokerage and benefited me in no way,” Meuser wrote in an email to NOTUS that referenced his stock broker a half-dozen times. “I acted promptly to correct it as soon as I became aware. The rules that exist for members of Congress must be followed and enforced, that is why I promptly notified the Ethics Committee of this error … I am very unhappy that this preventable error occurred, and I will be making clear to my brokerage that such errors are unacceptable and should not occur in the future.”
And Rep. Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican, reported more than 500 of her husband’s individual stock and bond trades weeks or months past the federal deadline, according to a NOTUS analysis of an 81-page disclosure McClain filed last week with the House of Representatives.
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Stocks traded include shares of Elon Musk’s electric car and solar panel company Tesla, tobacco company Philip Morris International and several banks and financial institutions including Bank of America, Barclays, First Financial Bankshares and the Bank of New York Mellon. McClain is also a member of the Committee on Financial Services, which has jurisdiction over the nation’s banking system.
The combined value of McClain’s post-disclosure deadline trades ranges from at least $800,000 to well into the millions of dollars.
In a statement to NOTUS, a McClain spokesperson, who declined to be identified by name, said the lawmaker does not make financial trades herself and uses brokerages to do so.
“She promptly filed the necessary paperwork immediately after being made aware of the transactions made in managed accounts and remains committed to transparency and adherence to all House financial disclosure rules and regulations,” the spokesperson said.
In the eyes of Congress, there’s no legal distinction between a federal lawmaker personally executing a financial trade and a financial adviser or broker executing a trade on their behalf.
In other words: The buck stops with the member if they screw up.
“You are personally responsible for incomplete and inaccurate information contained in your [financial reports], regardless of who assisted in preparation,” according to the House Committee on Ethics.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act violations by McClain and Meuser come amid an ongoing debate over whether lawmakers — dozens of whom have violated the act’s disclosure provisions this decade — should be banned from trading individual stocks in the first place.
This year alone, STOCK Act scofflaws include Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin and Reps. Neal Dunn, Scott Franklin, Brandon Gill and Tim Moore, as well as Democratic Reps. Shri Thanedar, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Dwight Evans, Jamie Raskin and Chellie Pingree.
Mullin, too, blamed his financial advisers — twice this month, in fact — when he disclosed multiple STOCK Act violations.
The senator uses “an independent, third-party operator firm that manages all stock portfolio investments on his behalf. He does not conduct nor inform trades,” his spokesperson told NOTUS.
Members of Congress have up to 45 days to publicly disclose any stock, bond or cryptocurrency trade they make for themselves or by a spouse or dependent child. Any trade disclosed after that deadline is considered late.
The House and Senate ethics committees are primarily responsible for investigating and punishing STOCK Act violators. Generally, the penalties are minimal for tardy financial disclosures: $200 for a first-time violator, administered by congressional ethics committees.
But the ethics committees reserve the right to waive such fines and provide no public accounting of which lawmakers have been fined and how much. Tom Rust, the House Ethics Committee’s chief counsel, declined to comment Monday.
The Ethics in Government Act does provide for criminal penalties of five-figure fines and even prison time for major violations, although no member of Congress had ever been prosecuted for a STOCK Act violation since the act became law in 2012.
While not patently illegal, some members of Congress have also bought and sold stocks in companies whose industries fall under the direct jurisdiction of the members’ congressional committees, such as House Armed Services Committee members who trade defense contractor stock or technology-related committee members who trade internet, computer and social media stocks.
Two other lawmakers who recently violated the STOCK Act’s disclosure provisions took more direct ownership of their stock-trade disclosure snafus.
For one: Rep. George Whitesides, a California Democrat, earlier this year sold off millions of dollars worth of individual stock holdings in an effort to avoid financial conflicts of interest, be them real or perceived.
But in the course of doing so, he failed to disclose — until last week — the sale earlier this year of between $50,001 and $100,00 worth of stock his wife held in Planet Labs, a satellite imaging company.
“This position was sold at a loss on March 27 as part of my divestments to avoid possible conflicts of interest,” Whitesides wrote to NOTUS in an email. Whitesides submitted the late disclosure “to ensure full transparency and compliance with all disclosure requirements. As of March 28, neither I nor my wife hold any single company publicly-traded stocks.”
Rep. Austin Scott, a Georgia Republican, meanwhile, did not disclose until last week 17 of his wife’s stock sales made between May 2024 and June 2025.
In an email to NOTUS, Scott acknowledged that was late reporting the sales, which stem from his wife’s inherited retirement account and “disclosed within 48 hours of the time that I was made aware of them.
Scott says he proactively contacted the House Ethics Committee to alert them and has not to date paid a fine.
Scott says he’s open to tougher rules regarding lawmakers and their personal financial trades.
“At a minimum, there needs to be additional disclosure including the actual number of shares and the actual price in the transaction, which is what I did in the disclosure of these sales,” he said.
Meuser concurred.
“I do follow the rules, and if those rules are strengthened, I will continue to follow them,” he said.
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