Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, the Florida congressman who was in the running to be former President Donald Trump's vice presidential pick, is in some hot water over his stock trades.
Donalds and his wife made over 100 trades, valued between $108,000 and $1.6 million, over the course of 2022 and 2023.
Though he disclosed those trades in annual forms filed in August 2023 and August 2024, he did not file any periodic transaction reports over those two years, which lawmakers are required to file within 45 days of trading any stock in order to ensure the public is aware of lawmakers' financial dealings in real time.
Failing to file those reports constitutes a clear violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law designed to prevent insider trading that requires regular disclosure of stock trades.
The Campaign Legal Center, a liberal-leaning ethics watchdog, filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics on Thursday calling for a probe into whether Donalds' failure to disclose the trades "was an attempt to avoid public scrutiny of potential conflicts of interest."
A spokesperson for Donalds did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the congressman's disclosures, the stocks were held in a retirement account associated with Donalds' former employer, Moran Wealth Management, a firm based in Naples, Florida. It's possible that the trades were made by someone other than Donalds, as is sometimes the case with other lawmakers, though he is still legally responsible for disclosing those trades.
Donalds also supports banning lawmakers from trading stocks, making his violation of the law all the more notable.
In March 2022, when asked about Business Insider's reporting that dozens of lawmakers and staffers had failed to disclose their stock trades in a timely fashion, Donalds said, "That's when you have to have sanctions, and the House has to get real."
Campaign Legal argued that because Donalds appeared to be aware of the STOCK Act's requirements — as many lawmakers often are not — there's reason to believe he intentionally did not disclose the trades.
The group pointed to the fact that Donalds, a member of the House Financial Service Committee, traded stock in companies that the committee oversees, including Elevance Health and JPMorgan Chase.
In 2022, after the Office of Congressional Ethics found that there was "reason to believe" three lawmakers violated the STOCK Act, the House Ethics Committee let them off the hook, ruling that the trio appeared to be unaware of the requirements of the law.
