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For more than a decade after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, Washington’s regulatory watchdogs sought to ensure that they would never again face fraught weekend deliberations about propping up the financial system from a bank failure. Last weekend, they did.

☆ Effort to Ban Stock Trading Among Executive Branch Officials Renewed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Andrew Ackerman | Rebecca Ballhaus | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced a bill that would ban lawmakers and their spouses from owning or trading individual stocks last year but it didn’t move forward. WASHINGTON—Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) is expected to introduce legislation Monday that would ban senior executive branch officials from owning or trading individual stocks, a push to toughen restrictions on conflicts of interest in the federal government. Mr. Hawley’s bill is the latest fallout from a Wall Street Journal series that identified a sweeping pattern of financial conflicts across the executive branch, including finding that more than 2,600 officials invested in companies overseen by their agencies.

☆ Lawmakers Call for Broad U.S. Probes of Financial Conflicts by Federal Officials
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Brody Mullins | Rebecca Ballhaus | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Eric Lee for The Wall Street JournalTwo Democratic lawmakers are requesting recommendations for how ethics rules and regulations in Washington can be strengthened. WASHINGTON—Two Democratic lawmakers called on the executive branch to root out financial conflicts-of-interest among top government officials. In letters sent to eight federal agencies Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington asked that internal investigators launch probes into conflicts of interest and review the effectiveness of the agencies’ rules.

U.S. ethics officials in recent years have warned one-third of the Energy Department’s senior officials that they or their families owned stocks related to the agency’s work, reminding them not to violate federal conflict-of-interest rules. Most held on to the stocks, a Wall Street Journal analysis of officials’ financial disclosures from 2017 through 2021 shows.

☆ U.S. Agencies Seek Tougher Rules, Internal Probes on Stock Trading by Federal Officials
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Rebecca Ballhaus | Brody Mullins | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is considering overhauling its ethics rules to crack down on financial conflicts. Several federal agencies are looking to tighten their ethics rules, while others have directed their internal watchdogs to investigate suspicious investing by officials, as lawmakers continue to press for tougher trading restrictions across the federal government. The efforts follow a Wall Street Journal series that identified a sweeping pattern of financial conflicts across the executive branch, including finding that more than 2,600 officials invested in companies overseen by their agencies. In some instances, officials’ trading appeared to violate federal and agency rules that are intended to maintain the public’s trust in the government and keep officials from using their influence for personal gain.

Last year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. deliberated over whether to tap Microsoft Corp. as its primary cloud provider. Three key officials involved in the discussions, or their family members, owned shares in Microsoft, including the deputy chief information officer who pushed to pick the company. By early this year, Microsoft had become the agency’s primary cloud platform.

☆ Ethics Watchdog Group Seeks Probes Into Oversight of Officials’ Stock-Trading Conflicts
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Brody Mullins | Rebecca Ballhaus | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A nonpartisan group that monitors government ethics filed a series of legal complaints alleging the federal government is failing to adequately enforce conflict-of-interest rules. The Campaign Legal Center called on the executive-branch agency that oversees ethics rules to investigate what it called deficiencies in enforcement at several agencies. The group also requested that internal investigators at four federal agencies examine whether their ethics programs complied with federal rules.

Mark Wu held more than $1 million of Amazon.com Inc. stock when President Biden tapped him to help craft a trade policy that would benefit U.S. technology companies and online retailers. Ethics officials at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said they gave Mr. Wu two options: Get rid of the stock or recuse himself from digital trade issues.

Federal officials working on the government response to Covid-19 made well-timed financial trades when the pandemic began—both as the markets plunged and as they rallied—a Wall Street Journal investigation found. In January 2020, the U.S. public was largely unaware of the threat posed by the virus spreading in China, but health officials were on high alert and girding for a crisis.

☆ Government officials made millions trading stocks and mutual funds impacted by pandemic
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailGovernment officials made millions trading stocks and mutual funds impacted by pandemicRebecca Ballhaus of the Wall Street Journal joins Shep Smith to discuss her reporting that found that roughly 240 government officials were raking in millions of dollars buying and selling stocks and mutual funds at the beginning of the pandemic, including drug and biotech stocks.

The top watchdog of American business is also home to Washington’s most active Wall Street investors. The Federal Trade Commission in recent years has opened investigations into nearly every major industry. It has launched antitrust probes into technology companies, examined credit card firms and moved to restrict drug, energy and defense-company mergers.

Thousands of officials across the government’s executive branch reported owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. More than 2,600 officials at agencies from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, disclosed stock investments in companies while those same companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies. That amounts to more than one in five senior federal employees across 50 federal agencies reviewed by the Journal.

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