Rep. Tom Price said he didn’t have access to lower stock prices or special information when investing in medical companies possibly benefiting from legislation he worked to advance.
“I had no access to non-public information,” the Georgia Republican told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during a confirmation hearing Wednesday morning.
Price is facing concerns about possible ethical violations, after media reports that he made trades worth more than $300,000 while voting to advance legislation that could affect some of those companies’ stock prices and that he invested in a medical device company just before introducing a bill to directly benefit it.
Price has said that if he’s confirmed as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, he would divest his interests in more than 40 health-related companies.
House rules don’t prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks but does prohibit them from basing trades on information gleaned through the legislative process.
Sen. Patty Murray, the top-ranking Democrat on the HELP Committee, drilled Price on the matter during the Wednesday hearing.
“Do you believe it is appropriate for a senior member of Congress actively involved in policy-making in the health sector to repeatedly, personally invest in a drug companies that could benefit from those actions?,” Murray asked Price.
But Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the attacks from Democrats appear to be “nothing more than a hypocritcal attack on your good character.”
“Everything we’ve done has been above board, transparent, ethical and legal,” Price responded.
