Rep. Julia Letlow Violated the STOCK Act With Over 210 Late Disclosures

Republican Rep. Julia Letlow violated a federal transparency law with late disclosures of personal stock trades potentially worth millions of dollars — dampening a week when House Republican leaders advanced a congressional stock-trade ban bill for the first time this decade.

Letlow, a Louisiana congresswoman in her third term, failed to disclose more than 210 stock and bond trades within a 45-day window mandated by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, according to a NOTUS review of new congressional financial documents.

Taken together, the trades — some of which are disclosed more than a year late — are worth between $225,000 and $3.3 million. (Lawmakers are only required to list the values of their trades in broad ranges.)

Letlow’s stock trades include shares of many prominent companies that routinely lobby Congress, such as Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Chevron, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Las Vegas Sands, Facebook parent Meta Platforms, power company NextEra Energy, Pfizer, tobacco company Philip Morris International, tech titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and UnitedHealth Group Inc.

Some have large federal government contracts, including Microsoft and defense and aerospace giant Boeing.

Letlow’s congressional office acknowledged that the congresswoman’s trades violated the STOCK Act’s disclosure provision.

But Letlow spokesperson Matt Smith said that the congresswoman was “two layers removed” from the trades themselves, which investment firm Merrill Lynch directed.

The firm “exercises discretionary trading authority and did not consult with the congresswoman or seek her approval prior to making these investment decisions,” Smith said, explaining that Letlow’s Merrill Lynch investment account previously contained only mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

But “when the investment firm made the independent decision to add individual stocks and bonds to the portfolio, they were unaware that those transactions would trigger additional reporting obligations for their client,” Smith said. “When the congresswoman discovered that reportable transactions had been inadvertently omitted, she promptly retained legal counsel to conduct a comprehensive review of her accounts to ensure that all required transactions are fully reported.”

Letlow proactively alerted the House Ethics Committee, which administers STOCK Act violations, because “she takes her disclosure obligations seriously and is committed to ensuring transparency moving forward,” Smith said.

As of Thursday, the committee had not fined the congresswoman a standard $200 for a first-time disclosure violation, he said.

Merrill Lynch spokesperson Julia Ehrenfeld declined to comment. The House Ethics Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Congress itself makes no legal distinction between a federal lawmaker personally executing a financial trade and a financial adviser or broker executing a trade on the lawmaker’s behalf. It puts the onus of STOCK Act compliance squarely on the member of Congress.

“You are personally responsible for incomplete and inaccurate information contained in your [financial reports], regardless of who assisted in preparation,” according to the House Committee on Ethics.

Letlow joins dozens of other members of Congress who’ve violated the STOCK Act’s disclosure provisions this decade.

Democrats and Republicans have routinely broken this law.

Since July, at least 17 other federal lawmakers have reportedly violated the STOCK Act: Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma and Reps. Linda Sánchez of California, Lisa McClain of Michigan, Pat Ryan of New York, Sheri Biggs of South Carolina, Donald Norcross of New Jersey, Rich McCormick of Georgia, Ritchie Torres of New York, Troy Nehls of Texas, Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, Jonathan Jackson of Illinois, George Whitesides of California, Val Hoyle of Oregon, Austin Scott of Georgia, Shri Thanedar of Michigan and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Scott Franklin of Florida.Other members, such as Reps. Cleo Fields of Louisiana and Byron Donalds of Florida, have faced scrutiny for the timing of their personal stock trades.

Letlow’s STOCK Act violation coincides with a flurry of action around congressional stock-trade legislation.

On Wednesday, the Republican-led House Administration Committee advanced the Stop Insider Trading Act, which would ban federal lawmakers and their immediate family members from trading individual stocks.

Two competing measures — the bipartisan Restore Trust in Congress Act and the Democrat-backed Restore Trust in Government Act — are also in the House’s legislative mix.

On Thursday, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Ashley Moody of Florida introduced a Senate companion to the Restore Trust in Congress Act. It includes several provisions — such as banning stock ownership altogether — that are more strict than the Stop Insider Trading Act, which House Speaker Mike Johnson supports.

“Current regulations just aren’t cutting it,” Gillibrand said Thursday during a video call with reporters.

Does Letlow support any of these bills?

“She supports the concept,” Smith said, “but still wants to review the specifics.”