BREAKING: “Ashley Hinson Lied About Owning Stock While Campaigning Against Insider Trading in Congress”
MeidasTouch News: “Hinson Got Caught in a Lie Claiming She Had Sold All Individual Stocks and Was Invested Only in Mutual Funds Upon Becoming a Member of Congress”
MeidasTouch News: A Hinson Spokesperson “Admitted” That Hinson Still “Retained ‘Private’ Stock”
DES MOINES – According to a breaking report from MeidasTouch News today, Ashley Hinson is lying to Iowans about owning up to $5 million in insurance stock while she campaigns to ban congressional stock trading.
Multiple times this year Hinson has “lied” to Iowans and said that her family “sold all of our individual stocks,” but on June 16, Hinson’s campaign spokesperson admitted that she still “retains ‘private’ stock.”
Missed the report? See below for key highlights:
MeidasTouch News: Ashley Hinson lied about owning stock while campaigning against insider trading in Congress
- Iowa Republican Representative and Senate Candidate Ashley Hinson got caught in a lie claiming she had sold all individual stocks and was invested only in mutual funds upon becoming a member of Congress. Hinson has been campaigning against stock ownership and insider trading by members of Congress, and claimed she had sold all her individual stocks when she was named to the House Appropriations Committee, which has power over the federal budget.
- It was revealed this month, however, that while Hinson did divest in publicly traded companies, Hinson’s net worth increased by [up to] $7 million while she was in office due to her husband’s ownership of individual stock in his private company.
- In January of this year, Hinson said at a campaign meet and greet that she and her husband “proactively sold all of our individual stocks” and “only invested in mutual funds.” Hinson later repeated the claim that she sold all her “individual stocks when [she] got named to the Appropriations Committee” and then said in [an]interview that she “changed all that to mutual funds and ETFs” when discussing her investments.
- However, in that same campaign statement on June 16 to local ABC affiliate KCAU, a Hinson spokesperson admitted that her husband retained “private” stock in his company.
- “This is a shameless lie from partisan hacks,” Ashley Hinson’s campaign spokesman told KCAU. “Ashley and her husband sold all of their individual stocks shortly after Ashley took office and invested in ETFs and mutual funds for their retirement. Her husband, Matt, sold a private business he built before Ashley was ever elected and retains private stock in this business.“
- According to the SEC, a private stock is a security that represents ownership in a private company vs. a public company. Private stock can be an individual stock. Retaining individual stock in her husband’s company contradicts her claim that the couple sold all their individual stocks and invested solely in exchange traded funds (ETF’s) and mutual funds.
- Earlier this year, Hinson co-sponsored a bill called the Stop Insider Trading Act (SITA), which bans Members of Congress from purchasing stocks, but does nothing to limit a members’ current assets or that of their families. She also refused to sign a discharge petition to force a vote on the more comprehensive End Congressional Stock Trading Act, which forces complete divestment.
- Hinson recently dodged a question from a reporter about whether or not she would uphold her campaign pledge and actually sell the individual stock she and her husband continue to own, despite claiming to have sold all individual stocks.
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