Republican New York Rep. Chris Collins resigned his seat in Congress on Monday, one day before pleading guilty to federal charges related to insider trading.
Resignation submitted, guilty plea expected
Politico reported that Collins submitted his resignation on Monday and stepped down from the seat he had held representing the Buffalo, New York area since 2012, an office to which he was re-elected in 2018 despite being under indictment on federal charges at the time.
Collins pleaded guilty to insider trading charges on Tuesday morning.
The charges were filed in August 2018 and relate to allegations that Collins shared inside information with family members about a company in which they all were heavily invested, an Australian biotech firm known as Innate Immunotherapeutics. Aside from being the largest investor in that company, Collins also sat on its board of directors.
The biotech firm had been researching a new drug treatment for multiple sclerosis, but clinical trials were unsuccessful. Collins passed that particularly pertinent piece of information along to his family before the news became public, which allowed them to dump their shares — though Collins kept his — prior to the company’s stock price collapsing in June 2017. They were thus able to avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential losses.
Early Trump supporter
The media establishment has been especially keen to focus on Collins’ troubles given the fact that he was the first member of Congress to publicly support then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and subsequently became an outspoken defender of the new president in 2017.
Prior to joining Congress, Collins was a successful business executive who had made tens of millions of dollars in various endeavors. Following several unsuccessful attempts to seek political office, he was finally elected in 2012.
When Collins was indicted in August 2018, he didn’t tender his resignation — nor was he pressured to do so by Republican leadership — but he did step down from his seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee and announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018.
However, he later changed his mind and barely retained his seat in Congress, winning by just one point after essentially self-funding his campaign with about $500,000 of his own money. Given the solidly red trend within Collins’ district, it is unlikely that his resignation will lead to the seat falling into Democrat hands in the 2020 election.
Congressional insider trading
Breitbart noted that Collins’ resignation is essentially another notch in the belt of anti-corruption author Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute. Schweizer, who wrote the book “Throw Them All Out” in 2011, has devoted ample attention to political corruption, particularly allegations of insider trading among members of Congress.
In fact, Schweizer has been a driving force behind the passage of the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which prohibits members of Congress from enriching themselves by taking advantage of insider market knowledge and would increase financial transparency requirements for politicians, executive branch officials, staffers, and their family members.
It is unclear at this time what sort of sentence Collins can expect to receive as a result of his guilty plea.
251 Responses
Wonderful beat ! I would like to apprentice while you amend your site, how could i subscribe for a blog site? The account aided me a acceptable deal. I had been a little bit acquainted of this your broadcast offered bright clear idea
Thank you for sharing excellent informations. Your web site is very cool. I am impressed by the details that youve on this website. It reveals how nicely you understand this subject. Bookmarked this website page, will come back for more articles. You, my pal, ROCK! I found just the info I already searched all over the place and simply could not come across. What a great site.
Its really a cool and helpful piece of info. Im happy that you just shared this helpful info with us. Please stay us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.
We’re a group of volunteers and opening a new scheme in our community. Your website provided us with valuable information to work on. You have done an impressive job and our whole community will be grateful to you.
I was wondering if you ever considered changing the structure of your website? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or two images. Maybe you could space it out better?
Wow, superb blog layout! How long have you been blogging for? you make blogging look easy. The overall look of your site is fantastic, let alone the content!
Ive read some good stuff here. Certainly worth bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how a lot effort you place to make such a wonderful informative website.
Its really a great and helpful piece of info. Im glad that you shared this useful info with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.
I just couldn’t depart your website prior to suggesting that I actually enjoyed the usual information a person supply in your visitors? Is gonna be again continuously to investigate cross-check new posts
Generally I do not read post on blogs, but I wish to say that this write-up very compelled me to try and do it! Your writing style has been amazed me. Thanks, quite great post.
Hi, i read your blog from time to time and i own a similar one and i was just curious if you get a lot of spam feedback? If so how do you protect against it, any plugin or anything you can suggest? I get so much lately it’s driving me crazy so any support is very much appreciated.
Fantastic post however , I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this topic? I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Appreciate it!
Great I should definitely pronounce, impressed with your site. I had no trouble navigating through all the tabs and related info ended up being truly easy to do to access. I recently found what I hoped for before you know it in the least. Reasonably unusual. Is likely to appreciate it for those who add forums or something, site theme . a tones way for your client to communicate. Excellent task..
I have recently started a website, the info you offer on this web site has helped me tremendously. Thanks for all of your time & work.
My brother recommended I may like this web site. He was once entirely right. This publish actually made my day. You cann’t believe just how a lot time I had spent for this info! Thanks!
F*ckin remarkable issues here. Im very satisfied to peer your article. Thank you so much and i am looking ahead to touch you. Will you please drop me a mail?
Today, while I was at work, my sister stole my apple ipad and tested to see if it can survive a forty foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is entirely off topic but I had to share it with someone!
I am extremely inspired with your writing abilities as well as with the format on your blog. Is this a paid topic or did you modify it your self? Anyway keep up the excellent high quality writing, its uncommon to look a nice blog like this one today..
Helpful information. Lucky me I discovered your website accidentally, and I am shocked why this accident did not happened earlier! I bookmarked it.
Howdy would you mind stating which blog platform you’re working with? I’m looking to start my own blog in the near future but I’m having a hard time selecting between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your design and style seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique. P.S Apologies for being off-topic but I had to ask!
Hello very cool blog!! Man .. Excellent .. Superb .. I’ll bookmark your website and take the feeds alsoI am glad to seek out numerous helpful info here within the submit, we need work out more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .
I was very happy to find this internet-site.I needed to thanks for your time for this glorious read!! I definitely having fun with every little little bit of it and I’ve you bookmarked to take a look at new stuff you weblog post.
Its arduous to search out knowledgeable people on this subject, but you sound like you understand what youre speaking about! Thanks
I do agree with all of the ideas you’ve presented in your post. They are really convincing and will definitely work. Still, the posts are very short for starters. Could you please extend them a bit from next time? Thanks for the post.
Excellent beat ! I would like to apprentice while you amend your website, how can i subscribe for a blog web site? The account aided me a acceptable deal. I had been tiny bit acquainted of this your broadcast offered bright clear concept
I have been exploring for a little for any high-quality articles or blog posts on this kind of area . Exploring in Yahoo I at last stumbled upon this web site. Reading this info So i am happy to convey that I’ve an incredibly good uncanny feeling I discovered exactly what I needed. I most certainly will make certain to dont forget this site and give it a glance on a constant basis.
Hmm is anyone else experiencing problems with the images on this blog loading? I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog. Any feed-back would be greatly appreciated.
hey there and thank you for your information I have definitely picked up something new from right here. I did however expertise several technical issues using this site, since I experienced to reload the web site lots of times previous to I could get it to load correctly. I had been wondering if your web hosting is OK? Not that I’m complaining, but slow loading instances times will very frequently affect your placement in google and could damage your quality score if advertising and marketing with Adwords. Well Im adding this RSS to my e-mail and could look out for a lot more of your respective intriguing content. Ensure that you update this again soon..
Whats Happening i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I’ve found It absolutely useful and it has aided me out loads. I hope to contribute & help other users like its aided me. Good job.
I discovered your blog website on google and examine a few of your early posts. Proceed to maintain up the very good operate. I just further up your RSS feed to my MSN News Reader. In search of forward to studying more from you in a while!
Hello my family member! I want to say that this post is awesome, nice written and include almost all significant infos. Id like to peer more posts like this .
Thanks for another informative website. Where else may I get that type of information written in such an ideal method? I have a venture that I’m just now operating on, and I have been at the look out for such info.
Good day! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could locate a captcha plugin for my comment form? I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having trouble finding one? Thanks a lot!
Hello, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your blog site in Safari, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, wonderful blog!
Thanks for the sensible critique. Me & my neighbor were just preparing to do some research on this. We got a grab a book from our local library but I think I learned more from this post. I’m very glad to see such excellent information being shared freely out there.
My coder is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using Movable-type on a number of websites for about a year and am worried about switching to another platform. I have heard good things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress posts into it? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Good day! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I truly enjoy reading your blog posts. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that cover the same subjects? Thanks!
Does your website have a contact page? I’m having trouble locating it but, I’d like to send you an email. I’ve got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great blog and I look forward to seeing it grow over time.
Thanks – Enjoyed this post, can you make it so I receive an email sent to me when you publish a new article?
Howdy would you mind letting me know which web host you’re utilizing? I’ve loaded your blog in 3 completely different web browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot faster then most. Can you suggest a good internet hosting provider at a fair price? Thanks a lot, I appreciate it!