Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., is doing his darnedest to help Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., become president. At least that’s what whoever manages his investments is doing.
President Trump told the Pentagon to up its budget request to $750 billion on Sunday. The chairman of the Senate Arms Committee bought between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in Raytheon, a defense contractor and a benefactor of the budget boost, on Tuesday.
When the Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay flagged the purchase, Inhofe canceled it.
“All of Senator Inhofe’s financial transactions are handled by a third-party advisor,” wrote spokesperson Leacy Burke in an email. “The senator has had no involvement in and has not been consulted about his stock transactions.”
“The Senator has called his financial advisor and they reversed, or busted, the transaction,” Burke added. “This means that the transaction was canceled before it was settled; the Senator never took ownership of it.”
Inhofe got caught before he could go through with the purchase. Score one for investigative journalism. Ding Senate Republicans for making a joke of good government. Of course, it is possible that Inhofe didn’t know about the purchase as his office suggests. But whoever handles his finances can read the news.
The whole episode is a gift to Warren who hopes that a grab bag of good government reforms can carry her to the presidency. She dropped the reform package earlier this year and, thanks to Inhofe, one sounds especially needed. Warren would make it illegal for members of Congress to own individual stocks — something our editorial board called for seven years ago this week, long before she was in Congress.
When Warren sharpens her talking points for the campaign trail, she can use Inhofe as a poster child for special interests if she tires of talking about Trump family corruption. He wrapped himself up, stuck a bow on his head, and offered his stock portfolio to her as a ready-made campaign commercial.
