Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said he will not buy any more defense stocks amid criticism over his financial adviser attempting tens of thousands of dollars in trades a day after the senator brokered a potentially massive defense budget hike.
The adviser initiated $55,000-$100,000 of trades on Raytheon stock Monday as it and other major defense contractors saw their share prices jump on the news Sunday that President Trump was persuaded to back a $750 billion budget. The trades were first reported by the Daily Beast.
Inhofe, the Senate Armed Services chairman, had spent about two hours with Trump last week convincing him to abandon a 5 percent defense cut and instead hike spending again next year. The $750 billion budget is $17 billion more than what the Pentagon was planning and could be a boon for the defense industry.
“I had no say in any of the investments that took place by this group, because I’m one of 900 and some clients that all invest in the same thing,” Inhofe told CNN. “Now, so that it wouldn’t look bad, I’ve said, ‘When you come to our account, you can take out anything it might look like an aerospace or a defense contractor,’ and that’s what they did.”
Inhofe’s office provided the Washington Examiner a copy of the letter the senator sent to his adviser requesting no more trades on defense or aerospace stocks.
“All of Sen. Inhofe’s financial transactions are handled by a third-party adviser. The senator has had no involvement in and has not been consulted about his stock transactions,” spokeswoman Leacy Burke said in the email statement.
The trades were called off, or “busted,” before being completed, though they could still raise some ethical questions for Inhofe, who took over as Armed Services following the death of John McCain in August and will attempt to shepherd the $750 billion defense budget through Congress next year.
Lawmakers are barred from trading on inside information gleaned from their service and access, but the news of Trump’s $750 billion budget request was already public when the trades were initiated on Monday.
