2026-02-09T11:00:46.630Z / CNN
至少有9名参议员去年报告了股票买卖交易，涉及的公司恰好是他们所服务委员会监管的行业。这些交易令政府监督组织感到担忧，因为两党推动禁止此类行为的努力在国会山陷入停滞。
根据国会财务文件数据库（由Capitol Trades编制并经CNN审核）显示，在过去一年中，这9名投资与委员会职责重叠行业股票的参议员中，大多数拥有全面的金融投资组合，并非所有投资都引发潜在利益冲突问题。但来自这一小群关系密切的参议员的超过十多笔交易，揭示了为何议员股票交易现象引发公众愤怒——以及推动禁止该行为的重大努力。
在披露股票交易时，议员必须注明股票所有者。这些参议员将自己列为其委员会监管行业的股票所有者。在众议院，议员可选择不披露股票所有者。
“这一切都极其令人不安，”无党派监督组织政府监督项目（Project on Government Oversight）代理副总裁迪伦·赫特勒-高代特（Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette）表示。“这是两党共同的问题。共和党人和民主党人都有此行为，且分布相当均衡。这是制度核心的腐败。”
参议员的交易是合法的，而披露这些交易的议员否认他们对股票投资组合的投资决策有个人控制权。
但民调始终显示，公众广泛支持禁止国会议员拥有股票。这一问题受到全国关注——并引起无党派伦理专家警觉——这源于新冠疫情初期可疑的抛售时机，以及像前众议院议长南希·佩洛西（Nancy Pelosi）等知名议员的活跃交易。多年来，数十名议员披露了其委员会工作涉及的公司股票交易。
至少有一名支持禁止国会股票交易的民主党人和一名共和党人，在最近几个月披露了涉及委员会工作的股票交易。
共和党佛罗里达州参议员阿什利·穆迪（Ashley Moody）最近几周提出了一项两党法案，禁止议员股票交易。
然而，这位担任参议院卫生委员会成员的佛罗里达州共和党人，根据联邦记录投资了5家医疗保健公司。其中包括去年3月购买制药巨头礼来公司（Eli Lilly）10万至25万美元的股票。
礼来公司去年花费数百万美元游说国会。该委员会的共和党主席发布的一份关于联邦药品定价的报告，引用了礼来公司的证词，而参议院民主党人正在审查该公司与远程医疗公司的关系。
穆迪办公室在给CNN的声明中表示，这位佛罗里达州共和党人从未批准或发起过股票交易。
“2025年1月底她被任命为参议员时，她是一个扩展家族投资合伙企业的成员，其中一名合伙人在咨询第三方财务顾问后独立做出投资决策，参议员并未参与其中，”她的办公室在声明中称。
此后，穆迪办公室表示，参议员“立即”采取措施退出该合伙企业，自2025年4月起未再进行股票交易。“作为这一承诺的标志，穆迪参议员提出了一项立法，以恢复国会的信任，并确保在议员进行个人股票交易方面不存在不当行为的表象，”声明中写道。
民主党参议员约翰·希肯卢珀（John Hickenlooper）尽管最近成为限制议员股票交易活动立法的共同提案人，仍投资了一家与其委员会职责重叠的公司。
记录显示，2025年9月，希肯卢珀在担任参议院商务委员会成员期间，向网络安全公司帕洛阿尔托网络（Palo Alto Networks）投资了10万至25万美元。
美国总务管理局（General Services Administration）12月宣布了一项新的合作项目，允许联邦机构以最高60%的折扣购买帕洛阿尔托网络产品。专家告诉CNN，这引发了警示，因为该合同可能使希肯卢珀受益，而他的委员会负责监督联邦合同。
作为回应，希肯卢珀的发言人告诉CNN，参议员“不亲自进行股票交易。他的股票自2003年他担任丹佛市长以来就已处于盲目信托中。所有决策均由一名经理做出，参议员事先不知情也未参与决策。”发言人还指出，希肯卢珀共同赞助了一项立法，要求所有国会议员将其股票转入合格的盲目信托，以防止他们利用内幕信息进行投资决策并获利。
同样在参议院卫生委员会任职的共和党参议员马克韦恩·穆林（Markwayne Mullin），于2025年1月通过与妻子的联合账户出售了雅培实验室（Abbott Laboratories）的股票，这是一家医疗设备和医疗保健公司。在穆林交易前一个月，雅培将参议院列为其游说对象之一。
当时，雅培正面临一系列多年的婴儿配方奶粉污染诉讼，其中一起案件导致4.95亿美元的损害赔偿裁决。
但穆林办公室坚称，参议员并未直接进行交易。“穆林参议员使用一家独立的第三方运营公司代表他管理所有股票投资组合，”一位发言人表示。“他不进行也不通知交易。该独立公司每两周向参议院伦理委员会报告，以确保符合联邦法律。”
民主党参议员谢尔登·怀特豪斯（Sheldon Whitehouse），其在参议院财政委员会任职，11月披露了其个人账户中持有联合健康集团（UnitedHealth Company）1000至15000美元的股票。
然而，怀特豪斯的发言人梅根·麦卡比（Meaghan McCabe）与该交易划清界限。“参议员不进行股票交易，其账户经理有合同义务独立行事，未经参议员任何输入，”怀特豪斯发言人梅根·麦卡比告诉CNN。
记录显示，共和党参议员杰瑞·莫兰（Jerry Moran）在参加参议院商务委员会讨论人工智能未来的听证会当天，购买了谷歌母公司Alphabet Inc的股票。
OpenAI和微软等主要科技公司的高管作为证人出席了听证会，但Alphabet或谷歌无人参加。
5月莫兰购买股票时，参议院正积极考虑放松对AI的监管，这将有利于Alphabet等公司。在公众强烈反对后，特朗普所谓“庞大美丽法案”最终版本中删除了暂停AI监管的条款。
“莫兰参议员的金融投资由一名经纪人独立管理，该经纪人对莫兰参议员的投资账户拥有完全决定权，”莫兰发言人告诉CNN。
国会股票交易专家告诉CNN，他们对参议员的解释并不满意。
进步游说组织P Street董事总经理艾玛·莱登（Emma Lydon）表示，“仅仅是潜在内幕交易的‘看法’就侵蚀了我们对民主的信任。”她指出，多项研究发现，平均而言，进行股票交易的议员往往表现优于标准普尔500指数。
“当议员被发现进行令人瞩目的交易时，他们常声称不知情，称交易是由独立财务经纪人在他们不知情的情况下完成的，”莱登说。“不幸的是，美国民众无法确知他们是否在说真话。”
左翼倡导组织竞选法律中心（Campaign Legal Center）伦理项目负责人凯德里克·佩恩（Kedric Payne）表示，由于当前制度的不透明性，利益冲突担忧持续存在。在该制度下，议员可以合法交易其监管行业公司的股票，同时决定如何监管这些行业。
“公众总会质疑，该委员会成员做出的任何决定是否真正以选民利益为优先，还是以个人财务收益为导向，”佩恩说。
2012年股票交易披露法通过时，佩恩曾在国会伦理办公室工作，他补充道，“几乎不可能证明他们使用了内幕信息，但此类交易看起来存在利益冲突——因此对公共利益的损害依然存在。”
尽管一些法案在参议院活跃，但去年国会山最具势头的提案是众议院谈判达成的妥协方案：禁止未来议员股票交易并强制其剥离所有现有持股。
一度有一小群众议院共和党人试图绕过党内领导层，将这项两党法案提交表决。但据利益相关者称，这一策略仍远未获得足够支持，且两党领导人最近采取行动削弱这一跨党派提案。
该法案《恢复国会信任法案》（Restore Trust in Congress Act）是“精心谈判的产物”，赫特勒-高代特表示。其127名共同提案人包括保守派共和党人如奇普·罗伊（Chip Roy）和南希·梅斯（Nancy Mace），以及进步派民主党人如亚历山德里娅·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez）和伊尔汗·奥马尔（Ilhan Omar）。
12月，民主党众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯（Hakeem Jeffries）推出了一项单独的国会股票禁令提案，也适用于特朗普和副总统JD·万斯（JD Vance）——这在大多数共和党议员中难以通过。这一举措令原则上支持该政策的伦理专家和自由派活动人士感到警觉，他们认为这是试图破坏更可行的两党法案。
“杰弗里斯法案是个问题，因为它阻碍了真正能解决问题的两党共识法案，”佩恩表示。“因此，突然出现了这一不必要的障碍，来自杰弗里斯。”
众议院议长迈克·约翰逊（Mike Johnson）受到党内同僚压力，允许对两党法案进行投票，他上个月采取了行动。他支持一项淡化版的共和党提案，允许议员保留现有股票组合，但要求股票出售前七天通知，并禁止议员及其家属进行新的购买。民主党人和一些无党派伦理专家表示，这可能会使问题恶化。
“它有太多漏洞，就像纸老虎，”赫特勒-高代特说。“他们现在可以以此为借口，声称自己采取了行动。但就解决问题而言，这是一个彻头彻尾的‘无内容汉堡’。”
众议院行政委员会本月早些时候仅以共和党支持通过了该法案，为可能的全院投票铺平了道路。
Senators’ stock trades directly overlapped with their committee work, CNN analysis finds
2026-02-09T11:00:46.630Z / CNN
At least nine senators reported stock purchases or sales last year involving companies in industries overseen by the committees they serve on. These transactions worry government watchdog groups, as a bipartisan effort to ban the practice has faltered on Capitol Hill.
Most of the nine senators who invested in stocks that overlap with their committee assignments over the last year have comprehensive financial portfolios, not all of which raise potential conflict-of-interest issues, according to a database of congressional financial filings compiled by Capitol Trades and reviewed by CNN. But the more than a dozen trades from this small group of well-connected senators provide a window into why the phenomenon of lawmaker stock-trading has led to public outrage – and a major push to ban the practice.
When disclosing stock trades, lawmakers have to include the owner of the stock. These are senators who listed themselves as owners of stock in industries that their committees regulate. In the House, lawmakers have an option to not disclose the owner of the stock.
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“It’s all extremely troubling,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “It’s a bipartisan problem. Republicans and Democrats are guilty of this, pretty evenly across the board. There’s an institutional rot at the core of this.”
The trades made by the senators are legal, and the lawmakers who disclosed these trades deny that they have any personal control over how their stock portfolios are invested.
But polls have consistently found widespread support for banning members of Congress from owning stocks. The issue has received national attention — and alarmed nonpartisan ethics experts — thanks to suspiciously timed sales at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and from active trading by high-profile members like former longtime House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And over the years, dozens of lawmakers have disclosed stock trades in companies that are influenced by their committee work.
At least one Democrat and one Republican who have supported congressional stock-trading bans are among the senators who disclosed trades in recent months involving companies that cross their committee work.
That Republican, Sen. Ashley Moody, in recent weeks introduced a bipartisan bill to ban lawmaker stock-trading.
Yet, the Florida Republican who sits on the Senate’s health committee, invested in five health care companies, according to federal records. Those include buying between $100,000 and $250,000 in the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly last March.
Eli Lilly spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress last year. The panel’s GOP chair released a report about federal drug-pricing that relied on testimony from Eli Lilly, and Senate Democrats are scrutinizing the company’s relationship with telehealth firms.
Moody’s office said in a statement to CNN that the Florida Republican has never approved or initiated a stock trade.
“When she was appointed to the Senate at the end of January 2025, she was a part of an extended family investment partnership where a partner independently made investment decisions in consultation with a third-party financial advisor, and with no input from the Senator,” her office said in the statement.
Since then, Moody’s office says the senator “immediately” took steps to withdraw from the partnership and has not traded stocks since April 2025. “As a sign of this commitment, Senator Moody introduced legislation to restore trust in Congress and ensure there is no appearance of impropriety as it relates to members trading individual stocks,” the statement reads.
Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper also invested in a company that overlaps with his committee assignments, despite recently becoming a co-sponsor on legislation that would put restrictions on lawmaker stock-trading activity.
In September 2025, Hickenlooper invested between $100,000 and $250,000 into a cybersecurity company called Palo Alto Networks while serving on the Senate Commerce Committee, records show.
The General Services Administration announced a new partnership in December letting federal agencies buy Palo Alto Network products at discounts up to 60%. Experts told CNN this raised red flags because the contracts could benefit Hickenlooper, whose committee does oversight of federal contracts.
In response, a Hickenlooper spokesperson told CNN that the senator “does not personally trade stocks. His stocks are already in a blind trust and have been since he was mayor of Denver in 2003. All decisions are made by a manager without the senator’s prior knowledge or input.” The spokesperson also pointed to Hickenlooper’s co-sponsoring of legislation that would force all members of Congress to place their stocks into a qualified blind trust so that they can’t use insider information to inform their portfolio decisions and turn a profit.
GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who is also on the Senate health panel, sold stock in January 2025 through a joint account with his wife in Abbott Laboratories, a medical devices and health care company. Abbott listed the Senate as part of its lobbying efforts one month before Mullin’s trade.
At that time, Abbott was in the midst of a slew of yearslong lawsuits over contaminated baby formula, including one case that led to a $495 million damages award.
But Mullin’s office maintains that the senator is not making the trades directly. “Senator Mullin uses an independent, third-party operator firm that manages all stock portfolio investments on his behalf,” a spokesperson said. “He does not conduct nor inform trades. This independent firm reports bi-weekly with Senate Ethics to ensure compliance with federal law.”
And Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, disclosed between $1,000 and $15,000 of stock in UnitedHealth Company in November 2025 in an account he owns.
Still, a Whitehouse spokesperson, Meaghan McCabe, distanced the Rhode Island Democrat from the trade. “The Senator does not trade stocks, and his account manager is contractually required to act independently without any input from the Senator. He supports a ban on members trading stocks and is reviewing the various proposals,” Whitehouse spokesperson Meaghan McCabe told CNN.
Records show that GOP Sen. Jerry Moran bought stock in Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, on the same day he participated in the Senate Commerce Committee’s hearing to discuss the future of artificial intelligence.
Executives from major technology companies like OpenAI and Microsoft testified as witnesses at the hearing, though no one from Alphabet or Google.
When Moran bought the stocks in May, the Senate was actively considering deregulating AI, which would benefit companies like Alphabet. After a major public backlash, the provision creating a moratorium on AI regulations was stripped out of the final version of Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill.”
“Sen. Moran’s financial investments are managed independently by a broker, who has full discretion over Sen. Moran’s investment accounts,” a Moran spokesperson told CNN.
Experts on congressional stock-trading told CNN they weren’t satisfied with the senators’ explanations.
Emma Lydon, managing director of progressive lobbying group P Street, said “merely the perception” of potential insider training “erodes trust in our democracy.” She noted that multiple studies have found that, on average, lawmakers who trade stocks often outperform the S&P.
“When caught making eyebrow-raising trades, members of Congress often claim ignorance, saying the trades were done without their knowledge by independent financial brokers,” Lydon said. “Unfortunately for the American people, it’s impossible to know whether they’re telling the truth.”
Kedric Payne, who runs the ethics program at the Campaign Legal Center, a left-leaning advocacy group, said conflict-of-interest concerns persist because of the opaqueness of the current system, where lawmakers can legally trade stocks in companies while deciding how those industries are regulated.
“The public will always question whether any decision made by that member on that committee was really focused on what’s best for the constituents, or what’s best for their personal financial gain,” Payne said.
Payne, who worked in the Office of Congressional Ethics when the stock-trading disclosure law was passed in 2012, added that, “it is nearly impossible to prove that they use insider Information, but trades like these look like a conflict of interest – and therefore the harm to the public interest remains.”
While some bills are active in the Senate, a House-negotiated compromise to ban future stock-trading by members of Congress and force them to divest all existing holdings seemed to pick up the most momentum of the proposals on the Hill last year.
At one point, a small group of House Republicans were trying to circumvent their party’s leadership to bring that bipartisan bill to the floor. But that maneuver is still far away from clinching the signatures needed, and leaders from both parties have recently taken steps to undermine that bipartisan proposal, stakeholders say.
That bill, the Restore Trust in Congress Act, was “the product of painstaking negotiations,” Hedtler-Gaudette said. Its 127 cosponsors include conservative Republicans like Rep. Chip Roy and Rep. Nancy Mace, and progressive Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar.
In December, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries rolled out a separate congressional stock ban proposal that would also apply to Trump and Vice President JD Vance — a nonstarter among most Republican lawmakers. This move alarmed ethics experts and liberal activists who supported that policy in principle, but saw the new bill as an attempt to tank the more viable bipartisan bill.
“The Jeffries bill was a problem because it got in the way of the bipartisan consensus bill that would really solve the issue,” Payne said. “So out of nowhere, you had this obstacle, which was not needed, coming from Jeffries.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has been pressured by fellow Republicans to allow a vote on the bipartisan bill, made his move last month. He backed a watered-down GOP proposal that would let members keep their current stock portfolios, but it would require a seven-day notice before a stock sale and would prevent lawmakers and their families from making new purchases. Democrats and some nonpartisan ethics experts say that might make the problem worse.
“It has so many loopholes that it’s a paper tiger,” Hedtler-Gaudette said. “They can now rally around this, and claim that they did something. But it’s a big fat nothing-burger, in terms of solving the problem.”
The House Administration Committee advanced that bill earlier this month with only GOP support, teeing up a likely floor vote.