VT lawmaker caught again

A Vermont congressman has been caught - for a second time - involved in insider trading.

After his wife's ExxonMobil sale led to a STOCK Act violation, Rep. Peter Welch insists he and his wife will no longer trade individual stocks.

• Welch said he and his wife would no longer hold individual stocks, reiterating a 2020 pledge.
• Welch disclosed his wife's sale of ExxonMobil stock one week late, violating the STOCK Act.
• A conservative watchdog group filed a complaint against Welch, who's now running for Senate.

Welch said he'd give up individual stock trading after an Insider investigation revealed he was one week late in disclosing his wife's sale of $6,238 worth of ExxonMobil shares in September.

"Rep. Welch has decided to no longer own individual stocks," Welch's communications director, Arianna Jones, told Insider.

The eight-term congressman, a native of Massachusetts, made a similar pledge in April 2020, but this time it's backed up by a new filing indicating that he's sold off all his individual stocks.

Asked for clarification, Welch's chief of staff, Patrick Satalin, told Insider that the pledge now applies to his wife, Margaret Cheney.

Welch's failure to disclose his wife's stock purchase in a timely manner constituted a violation of the disclosure provisions of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, which Welch cosponsored.