Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued Tuesday that Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., President-elect Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, may have broken the law if he knowingly bought stock in a company before introducing a measure that could have benefited them.
Schumer made the remarks to CNN after news emerged that Price bought up to $15,000 worth of stock in Zimmer Bionet, a medical device maker, only to introduce a measure a week later that would have delayed a regulation detrimental to the company.
“This is very, very troubling,” Schumer said. “This is a very narrow, specific company that dealt with hip and knee implants, and the legislation specifically affects implants. He puts it in a week after he buys the stock? That cries out for an investigation.”
“If he knew about it, it could very well be a violation of the law,” Schumer said.
Price’s team has defended the move, and said a broker made the purchase and that the Georgia Republican was not involved in the purchase and did not know about it until well after the measure was introduced.
“Now they say there’s a broker, it’s kind of strange that this broker would pick this stock totally independently of him introducing legislation that’s so narrow and specific to this company,” Schumer said responding to the push back from the Trump transition team. In a statement, a transition team spokesman called the news “junk reporting.”
“CNN recently broadcast a segment on Dr. Tom Price’s finances that was junk reporting. Any effort to connect the introduction of bipartisan legislation by Dr. Price to any campaign contribution is demonstrably false,” said Phil Blando, a transition spokesman. “The only pattern we see emerging is that Senate Democrats and their liberal media allies cannot abide the notion that Dr. Tom Price is uniquely qualified to lead HHS and will stop at nothing to smear his reputation.”
