Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) dumped millions of dollars worth of Google stock just weeks before the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had launched an antitrust lawsuit against the Big Tech company.
Pelosi’s financial disclosures show a sale of 30,000 shares in Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
The sale was roughly one month before the DOJ unveiled an antitrust lawsuit into the tech firm this week.
In the January 24 complaint, federal regulators claimed that Google monopolizes the tools that website publishers use to sell advertisements.
Companies also utilize the same tools to purchase advertisements.
According to federal disclosures, Pelosi, who resigned from her leadership position but remains a member of Congress, sold 10,000 shares of Alphabet Class A stock on December 20, December 21, and December 28.
The sale marks a combined transaction value between $1.5 million and $3 million.
The disclosures were digitally signed by Pelosi on January 12.
Shares for Google have increased roughly 8% over the past month.
However, the company’s stock price declined some 6% this week as news of the antitrust lawsuit became public.
Officials claimed that Google has engaged in a “pattern of acquisitions to obtain control over key digital advertising tools.”
The Silicon Valley giant is also accused of manipulating auctions to “deprive rivals of scale.”
Such moves may violate the Sherman Act, which outlaws “monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize” deemed unreasonable by the court system.
In a statement, Google said that the DOJ lawsuit attempts to “pick winners and losers” in the “highly competitive” advertising technology space.
Pelosi and her husband, Paul, have been repeatedly accused of insider trading.
The couple is accused of making tens of millions of dollars in personal profits by leveraging insider knowledge that the veteran lawmaker holds in order to increase earnings in the stock market.
The filing also revealed that the top Democrat sold shares of Netflix, PayPal, Salesforce, Tesla, and Disney.
Paul Pelosi appeared to have cut losses in software company Nvidia last year before the United States placed new restrictions on computer chip sales to China and Russia.
He sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia on July 26 at an average price of $165.05, causing a loss of $341,365, according to a set of disclosures.
One month later, Nvidia revealed that the government imposed export restrictions on the company’s A100 and forthcoming H100 circuits.
The new regulations will “address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China and Russia,” Nvidia said in a regulatory filing.
The couple has also placed stock market bets in the middle of heated policy debates in Congress.
In 2021, Paul Pelosi bought over $6 million in options contracts related to technology stocks while lawmakers worked on antitrust legislation.
Asset purchases from members of Congress and their immediate families amounted to $267 million in 2021, according to a report from the New York Times’ DealBook.
The report notes that sales amounted to $364 million.
Officials working at the Federal Reserve have also faced criticism for purchasing individual stocks amid their work to chart the nation’s monetary policy.
As Slay News reported earlier, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently introduced the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act, also known as the PELOSI Act.
Hawley’s bill seeks to address the phenomenon of lawmakers using inside information to benefit financially.
The legislation would ban politicians and their family members from holding individual stocks, diversified mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds.
“For too long, politicians in Washington have taken advantage of the economic system they write the rules for, turning profits for themselves at the expense of the American people,” Hawley said in a news release.
READ MORE: Pelosi Has a Long History of Insider Stock Trading
