U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan is accused of profiting from his vote for President Donald Trump’s massive economic bill, and his defense was blunt: “My financial advisor has made these trades with zero input from me.”
We’ve been here before, and it was a bit hard to accept the same logic then.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Spokesperson Eli Cousin said Bresnahan “recently sold stock in Centene — ‘the largest Medicaid managed care organization in the nation’ — just days before voting to gut Medicaid. The stock has now fallen more than 40% since his sale.” It’s important to note Bresnahan hasn’t denied the trade and the vote happened in that order. Instead, he used the financial adviser defense. “I learn about (these trades) the same time the public does. … I did not make this trade, and I had no knowledge of it.”
He called the DCCC statement a “smear campaign … trying to attack me for doing what millions of hardworking Americans do, which is hiring a financial advisor to manage their investments.”
We could ask how many of you actively hired a financial advisor, ever, but in reality the majority of Americans own some stocks — 62% in 2025, according to an annual Gallup poll (gallup.com). But the less you make, the less likely you are to own stocks. The percentage of stock holders breaks down thus: 87% of households earning $100,000 or more, 84% of college graduates; 77% of married adults; 49% of unmarried adults, 42% of those with a high school education or less, and 28% in households earning less than $50,000.
For many people, their stocks are bought through mutual funds or retirement plans, not by the stock owner. And while such plans are usually professionally managed, it is a stretch to say those people “hired” their own “financial advisor.” For Bresnahan to compare his personal situation with “what millions of hardworking Americans do” is glib at best.
But as noted, we’ve been here before. In 2012, a Times Leader analysis showed than then-U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta — a Republican like Bresnahan — owned a wide array of stocks that could be and almost certainly were impacted by his votes in Congress. When asked about it, he gave the same defense. “My financial adviser has total discretion,” he said. “I’m not even notified until after the transaction.”
Bresnahan noted he is in the process of putting his investments into a blind trust, and touted his own push for the “Transparency in Representation through Uniform Stock Trading Ban (TRUST) Act as an effort to ban stock trading for members of Congress.
But in 2012, Congress had passed the “STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act, prohibiting members, their staff and employees from trading on inside information acquired through their jobs. So while Bresnahan’s insistence that he is pushing “to restore the integrity Americans expect and deserve from their government” may be sincere, this is hardly the House’s first attempt to assure voters that representatives don’t profit in the stock market from their own votes.
But let’s accept Bresnahan’s claims he knew nothing about the stock deals, is setting up a blind trust, and that the TRUST Act is a personal effort to curb abuse of the stock market by legislators. There is a simple step he could take to avoid even a hint of impropriety.
Tell his investment advisor to stop all trading until the blind trust is final.
