Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) disclosed thousands of dollars worth in stock trades past the congressional deadline, meaning he could have run afoul of a federal conflicts-of-interest law, records show.
Sullivan said on a Nov. 3 financial disclosure that he inherited up to $50,000 worth of stock in Mowi, a seafood company, and up to $15,000 worth of stock in Five Below, a discount retail company, after the death of his parent. The third party who sold the shares did not inform Sullivan until Oct. 30, according to the filing, even though Mowi was traded on Aug. 2 and Five Below on Aug. 30.
It is unclear which parent the lawmaker was referring to in his filing. In 2019, Sullivan’s mother, Sandy Sullivan, died. Tom Sullivan, the lawmaker’s father, died in 2020.
Members of Congress must disclose stock trades within 45 days of the transaction’s date, according to the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, a law meant to curb possible conflicts of interest among lawmakers. However, Sullivan disclosed the Mowi sale 93 days after its transaction and the Five Below sale 65 days after its transaction, records show.
“Senator Sullivan complies with all Senate ethics and financial disclosure requirements,” a spokesman for Sullivan told the Washington Examiner. “As noted on the periodic transaction report that was filed with the Senate Ethics Committee, the two assets were inherited after the death of the Senator’s parent and were promptly sold by the third-party investment manager, who did not advise the Senator until October 30th.”
“As soon as the Senator was made aware of the sale, the necessary steps were immediately taken to file a PTR with the Ethics Committee, which has acknowledged receipt,” said the spokesman.
Lawmakers and senior congressional staffers who are found by the House Committee on Ethics to have violated the STOCK Act are supposed to be fined $200. Fines increase with lack of payment.
However, it is unclear how many times that fine has been enforced due to a lack of public records, Insider reported in 2021. There are 75 members of Congress since 2021 who appear to have violated the STOCK Act, according to Insider.
Sullivan has made nine stock trades worth up to $414,000 since February 2020, according to filings. In addition to the Mowi and Five Below trades, he has sold up to $375,000 worth of RPM International, which makes sealants and produces chemical products, and bought $100,000 worth of a mutual fund that overwhelmingly invests in healthcare, technology, and industrials.
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Stock trading among lawmakers has come under heightened scrutiny. The New York Times issued a report in September detailing how at least 97 members of Congress traded stocks while sitting on congressional committees that have oversight over those companies.
Sullivan was included in that report because he sold up to $50,000 in shares of RPM at the same time that he was a member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works’s subcommittee focused on chemical safety.
Roughly two weeks after the New York Times report, House Democrats unveiled a bill that would prohibit members from trading stocks.
The bill, dubbed the Combating Financial Conflicts of Interest in Government Act, was criticized by ethics experts because it includes a provision that allows the federal government to approve blind trusts for lawmakers. A bipartisan swath of watchdog groups questioned how the trusts could truly be “blind” if there may be different types authorized on a potentially subjective basis.
