Former congressman, eight others charged with insider trading schemes

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed insider trading charges against former Indiana congressman Stephen Buyer and eight other individuals in connection with three separate alleged schemes that together yielded more than $6.8 million in ill-gotten gains. The charges were announced in New York by United States attorney Damian Williams.

“Buyer used his job as a business consultant to obtain inside information about corporate mergers involving his clients, and then using that information to trade and to profit in his own account and in other people’s accounts,” Williams said Monday. He also alleged that several defendants tipped friends or family members with that stolen information so that they, too, could trade and benefit from an unfair advantage.

“We allege that each of the defendants charged today corrupted the integrity of the market,” Williams said.

In a civil case brought by the SEC in Manhattan federal court against Buyer, he was described as making purchases of Sprint stock in March 2018 just a day after attending a golf outing with a T-Mobile executive who told him about the company’s then-nonpublic plan to acquire Sprint.

The allegations of insider trading schemes against the former congressman come off the heels of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband making a controversial stock purchase last month. Paul Pelosi bought at least $1 million worth of shares in software and computer chip company Nvidia ahead of discussion on a bill to boost U.S. chip manufacturing. MarketWatch noted in its reporting that Nividia likely wouldn’t benefit from the bill because the company only designs chips and doesn’t manufacture them.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the Banning Insider Trading in Congress Act back in January. It would prohibit Members of Congress and their spouses from holding or trading individual stocks. The bill will require Congress members found in violation to return their profits to the American people.

“Year after year, politicians somehow manage to outperform the market, buying and selling millions in stocks of companies they’re supposed to be regulating. Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other at the expense of the country,” Sen. Hawley said in a statement. “Here’s something we can do: ban all members of Congress from trading stocks and force those who do to pay their proceeds back to the American people. It’s time to stop turning a blind eye to Washington profiteering.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.