Fox News Digital asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday if her husband Paul had ever made stock purchases or trades after hearing about the financial goings-on of Capitol Hill.
"No," Pelosi said. "Absolutely not."
Off camera, one can easily imagine the peals of laughter in the speaker's chambers and government plane at the unheard demands for "consequences" from the Heartland to correct America's dual system of accountability and justice.
Pelosi's hubby has a long history of buying up stock just as legislation relevant to that stock was about to drop in Congress.
Most recently, Paul Pelosi made a purchase of between $1 million and $5 million in shares of Nvidia, which is a semiconductor company, according to a disclosure filing made by Speaker Pelosi's office. He exercised 200 call options, or 20,000 shares, the disclosure states.
Paul Pelosi's computer chip stock purchase was made ahead of a vote, expected this month, by Congress on a $52 billion subsidy to the semiconductor industry as part of a bill to increase U.S. manufacturing of computer chips.
He has continued to buy tech stock throughout this year. In March, the speaker disclosed that her husband bought Apple as well as Disney and PayPal shares.
Retail traders track Pelosi's trades to "find winners," Yahoo reported.
Last year, Paul Pelosi purchased a substantial amount of tech stock in advance of an antitrust bill that was moving through the House, according to a Fortune report from July 2021.
In 2008, Paul Pelosi purchased Visa stock at the same time that credit card companies were lobbying Nancy Pelosi to stop legislation that would curb credit card swipe fees to vendors, CBS News reported at the time.
"The Pelosis purchased 5,000 shares of Visa at the initial price of $44 dollars," the CBS report read. "Two days later it was trading at $64."
CBS noted that the swipe fee legislation, the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights, eventually did pass the House.
"I will hold my record in terms of fighting the credit card companies as speaker of the House or as a member of Congress up against anyone," Speaker Pelosi told "60 Minutes."
Peter Schweizer, author of the 2011 book "Throw Them All Out," has long called on Congress to prohibit lawmakers and their spouses from trading individual stocks.
"They still sort of continue to blatantly trade in stocks," Schweizer told Just the News in October 2021. "So in the case of the Pelosis, for example, she's the Speaker of the House, legislation that's going to affect Big Tech in a positive way or big contracts going to Big Tech, her husband's not only buying and selling stock in Big Tech, he's actually buying options, which are sort of leveraged bets that the stock is going to go one way or the other. And, of course, Paul Pelosi Sr. just happens to be really good at making those predictions."
So, will there eventually be any "consequences" for spouses of Congress members getting rich betting on stocks related to pending legislation?
We can hear you laughing again, Madam Speaker.
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