Staff Reports
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California is back under the spotlight for her questionable stock transactions that spanned over the course of her three-decade-long congressional career. Unusual Whales, a stock and market news group, recently exposed Feinstein’s eyebrow-raising trades in a Twitter thread. The group provided five “unusual trades” examples, including Feinstein’s husband selling between $1.5 to $6 million in stocks of Allogene Therapeutics shortly after the senator attended CDC hearings in early January 2020. This specific stock market collapsed very soon after, which begs the question of insider trading and puts Feinstein’s $200 million wealth under scrutiny.
Diane Feinstein returns to Senate.
Feinstein, 89 years old, has some of the most unusual trades in Congress, over her thirty year career.
In that time, her net worth sky rocketed to over $200 million.
Let’s look at some of her unusual trades: pic.twitter.com/MS0VeOYstW
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) May 10, 2023
According to the report by Unusual Whales, Feinstein’s shady trades date back to at least 2009, when she and her husband bought $1 million in stocks of Amyris Biotechnologies. Shortly after the purchase, the company was awarded a $24 million governmental grant, and Feinstein then introduced her own bill that favored the very same company. Talk about a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” mentality.
Some NFL players, including Green Bay Packers’ David Bakhtiari and New York Jets’ Aaron Rogers, called out these corrupt actions on Twitter, calling this “cheating in broad daylight.” Still, Feinstein is not alone in this type of behavior, with many politicians on both sides of the aisle engaging in insider trading and making themselves wealthier off of their elected positions.
But, perhaps most concerning, the fact that Feinstein disclosed the trades on her financial disclosures does not free her from suspicion entirely. After all, her yearly salary as a U.S. senator is $174,000, yet her reported wealth stands at over $200 million. The wealth gap does not add up. Unfortunately, the only recourse we have is to continue to hold her accountable for her actions, demand transparency, and nothing less.
Source: Conservative Institute
