Donna Shalala, lone Democrat overseeing $500B virus fund, didn’t disclose 2019 stock sales
''The Miami Congresswoman said she sold a variety of stocks to eliminate potential conflicts of interest — but she failed to obey the law and report the transactions.''
WASHINGTON — Miami Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala, the lone House Democrat on the committee set up to oversee $500 billion in taxpayer money being used for coronavirus-related payouts to large businesses, violated federal law when she failed to disclose stock sales while serving in Congress. Shalala told the Miami Herald on Monday she sold a variety of stocks throughout 2019 to eliminate any potential conflicts of interest after she was elected to Congress in November 2018. But the transactions were not publicly reported as required by the STOCK Act, a 2012 law that prohibits members of Congress and their employees from using private information gleaned from their official positions for personal benefit and requires them to report stock sales and purchases within 45 days. Shalala’s office said the congresswoman and her financial adviser made a mistake.
Shalala, the former head of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, is in the process of setting up a blind trust for her assets, and transactions made within a blind trust without a lawmaker’s knowledge are not required to be disclosed. But the blind trust isn’t finalized, meaning any transactions would need to be made public. “She had a misunderstanding about the periodic transaction report process and her need to report the sale of these stocks while preparing a blind trust,” Shalala spokesperson Carlos Condarco said. “As a new member with a broker and attorney who were not familiar with the congressional disclosure rules, there was a misunderstanding.”
Shalala acknowledged the transactions after she was selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to represent House Democrats on a bipartisan panel that will monitor $500 billion in payouts to large businesses affected by the coronavirus. On her 2018 financial disclosure, the most recent that is publicly available, Shalala said she owned a number of stocks in companies that could be eligible to seek federal bailouts, a potential conflict of interest. Shalala’s appointment to the five-person commission put her in the role of helping to supervise efforts by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to stabilize the economy by lending hundreds of billions of dollars to struggling businesses, hospitals, municipalities and states. It will hold hearings and issue monthly reports to Congress. “Treasury got a huge pot of money to bail out large industries, specifically airlines,” Shalala said, of her role on the committee. “What we’re really after is mischief. We’re after fraud.” After Shalala was criticized for her stock holdings, her office said she’d sold off most of her portfolio of individual stocks in 2019. But the transactions were never disclosed publicly until her office told the Miami Herald.
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/04/22/donna-shalala-lone-democrat-overseeing-500b-virus-fund-failed-to-disclose-2019-stock-sales/