Political | Process

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is scrambling to block efforts from bipartisan lawmakers to prevent members of Congress from engaging in individual stock picks.

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• Pelosi, who has amassed an estimated net worth of anywhere between $40 million and $252 million, was accused last month of “slow-walking” efforts to rein in Big Tech while she gained on bullish stock options from Google, Salesforce, Micron Technology, and Roblox.

• Days later, a shaken-looking Pelosi asserted that members of Congress should be able to engage in the “free-market” and that there would be “no” conflict of interest from doing so.

• During a press conference in mid-December, Pelosi was asked if she had any “reaction” to 49 members of Congress violating the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (or STOCK Act) and if members of Congress should be banned from trading individual stocks while serving.

• A frazzled Pelosi then took a big sip of water, responding, “no, to the second . We have a responsibility to report on the stock, but I’m not familiar with that five-month review, but if people aren’t reporting, they should be. We are a free-market economy; they should be able to participate in that.”

• Reacting to Pelosi’s comment, former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, tweeted, “it’s a ridiculous comment! She might as well have said ‘let them eat cake.’ Sure, it’s a free-market economy.

• But your average schmuck doesn’t get confidential briefings from government experts chock full of nonpublic information directly related to the price of stocks.”