The year's most dubious stock trades by politicians come to light
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Members of Congress aren't technically allowed to use insider knowledge to trade stocks while in office, but a couple of well-timed trades have raised eyebrows among eagle-eyed critics. Momentum to ban members of Congress from trading stocks is swelling even as lawmakers make major profits from the turbulent stock market. Right now, existing law allows legislators sitting on military committees buy defense stocks while financial regulators can snap up crypto and bank shares. Though trading on inside information is forbidden, there's little enforcement - and the practice appears rampant on Capitol Hill.
Senate proposals would bar even the president and vice president from trading, but wealthy lawmakers claim restrictions would strip incentives and force unfair divestment of their holdings. Others complain they can't survive on their $174,000 salaries alone, fueling a trading bonanza that's generating handsome profits just as ban proposals gain steam. Here the Daily Mail highlights the top most suspect stock trades of the year.
Rep. Rob Bresnahan (pictured), R-Pa., a 34-year-old freshman legislator has been one of the most scrutinized traders. He was the former CEO of Kuharchik Construction, Bresnahan's family company, where he is credited with expanding the family business. The Pennsylvania Republican campaigned on banning members from trading, but he has reported more transactions than practically every other lawmaker. 'Bresnahan has filed more stock trades than almost any other member of Congress since entering office this year,' Quiver Quantitative's co-founder Christopher Kardatzke told the Daily Mail. Since being sworn in this January and August 8, the Republican has made at least 617 trades, according to federal disclosures data compiled by Quiver Quantitative. The Republican has repeatedly claimed his financial advisors manager his trades, but when pressed recently by a local radio station on why he doesn't instruct them to halt the transactions he deflected. 'And then do what with it?' the lawmaker told WVIA. 'Just leave it all in the accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?'
Bresnahan introduced a bill earlier this year to ban members and their spouses from stock trading, even as he's continued to make transactions. Right before Trump's signature domestic agenda the 'One Big, Beautiful Bill' passed Congress, Bresnahan reported sale in Centene, a healthcare company that later lost over half of its share price because of Medicaid cuts contained within the legislation. Democratic attack ads have shredded him for voting for the cuts. 'Honestly I found out about it in real time but the key takeaway is I follow the STOCK Act and I follow the rules,' Bresnahan said when pressed on the stock sale by WNEP . Bresnahan has been widely criticized for being hypocritical about his stock trading. He's claimed his advisors are forbidden from trading in companies held by foreign adversaries, however his disclosures show that he has bought and sold shares in Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company.
Bresnahan has also indicated he will put his money in a blind trust, where it is managed by someone else and he has no clue about the individual transactions. But setting up such an account takes time, he has claimed. 'The whole process has been excruciating,' he told the Washington Examiner recently. Nearly 170 of the Pennsylvanian's trades occurred just after Trump's early April tariff announcement, dubbed 'Liberation Day' by the White House. In one instance in February, the lawmaker even disclosed a day trade, showing the purchase and sale of Palantir stock on the same day. 'Even if the portfolio is managed by a financial advisor, as Bresnahan has claimed, we're left to wonder why an advisor is day-trading Palantir stock in a U.S. Congressman's account,' Kardatzke said.
Firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene has also gained attention for trading the same stock around the same time - a transaction that has netted her thousands. The Georgia Republican made a flurry of stock purchases around the exact time that Trump instructed the nation that it was 'a great time to get rich, richer than ever before,' on Truth Social. After the market dipped around Liberation Day, Green heeded the president's warning and loaded up on discounted stocks. She purchased tech stock Impinj on April 4, which has since rocketed up over 100 percent in the last few months. And after buying Palantir on April 8, the Georgia Republican has doubled her investment, locking in a return over 115 percent.
The tech company provides AI solutions and software to the federal government, including the Pentagon and more recently the Department of Homeland Security. Greene currently sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, the congressional panel that approves funding for DHS and ICE. She also claims her portfolio is managed by a financial advisor. 'Prior to this year, we had only seen one member of Congress ever buy Palantir stock. In the first two months of 2025, we saw six different members buy in,' Kardatzke noted. 'Maybe they all share the same financial advisor. The stock is up 148 percent so far this year.'
Legislation to ban trading among members has even received backing from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (pictured(, D-Calif., who has become notorious for scoring winning trades during her decades in Congress. When she led Congress in 2021 she famously brushed off questions about implementing a stock trading ban for members, citing 'a free market economy.' Though her disclosures show that these trades are done by her husband, Paul Pelosi, it does raise questions as to how he can so frequently beat the market, and by such massive margins. President Donald Trump posted on his own social media site Truth Social Saturday, calling Pelosi a 'disgusting degenerate' over her and her husband's stock trading practices.
Trump wrote that 'Crooked Nancy Pelosi, and her very 'interesting' husband, beat every Hedge Fund in 2024.' 'In other words, these two very average 'minds' beat ALL of the Super Geniuses on Wall Street, thousands of them,' Trump also added. 'Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks and has no knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions,' her spokesperson told the Daily Mail before Trump's latest attack on the former Speaker.
Between 2023 and early July 2025, over 70 percent of Pelosi's trades were profitable, according to Capitol Trades . The Bay Area couple has also reported call options on AI-focused companies like Nvidia, Alphabet and others. 'I think it's a little bit sketchy just because of how high-risk high-reward option contracts are,' Christopher Josephs, co-founder of Autopilot, a congressional investing app, told the Daily Mail. 'No average everyday person trading does that.' The 85-year-old Democrat got defensive recently when asked by CNN's Jake Tapper to respond to Trump's attacks on her trading practices. 'Why do you have to read that?' Pelosi interrupted when Tapper began asking about members' trading. Neither Greene nor Bresnahan responded to the Daily Mail's request for comment.
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