By Matt Rooney
The stock-trading attack on Congressman Tom Kean Jr. isn’t going away, Save Jerseyans — even after local reporting challenged a central premise of the Democrats’ argument.
Democrat NJ-07 nominee Rebecca Bennett and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have repeatedly attacked the Republican incumbent over financial disclosure reports showing transactions involving stocks in his portfolio, including transactions made while the Republican congressman was receiving treatment for depression.
There’s one rather significant problem with the attack: Kean says he doesn’t make the trades.
Kean has placed his investable assets in a structure managed by independent financial professionals who, according to the congressman, make investment decisions without his “input, prior knowledge, or direction.”
That distinction has already made its way into New Jersey political reporting. The New Jersey Globe recently characterized Bennett’s contention that Kean continued personally trading stocks while hospitalized as a repetition of “false claims” previously advanced by the DCCC.
Bennett nevertheless returned to the issue this month after Kean disclosed another 18 transactions, accusing the congressman of continuing to trade stocks. Her campaign says the transactions demonstrate that Kean broke earlier promises concerning congressional stock trading and the handling of his investments.
Kean, meanwhile, voted on July 22nd for the Stop Insider Trading Act, legislation intended to bar members of Congress, their spouses, and even their dependent children from trading individual publicly traded stocks.
He also took to the House floor to make his position clear.
“Members of Congress should serve the public — not profit from public office,” Kean said.
The NJ-07 Republican has also introduced the bipartisan No Shorting America Act, which would prohibit members and their immediate families from short selling, as well as legislation targeting congressional financial transactions involving foreign adversaries.
None of that has stopped Bennett or national Democrats from making Kean’s portfolio a major campaign issue in one of the country’s most closely watched congressional districts.
The NRCC says the distinction between Kean owning stocks and personally directing their purchase or sale is being deliberately blurred.
“Lying Rebecca Bennett and the DC insiders backing her continue to peddle false claims about Tom Kean Jr.,” NRCC spokeswoman Maureen O’Toole said, arguing that Kean is instead “fighting to clean up corruption in Washington.”
Democrats are free to criticize Kean for owning individual stocks while serving in Congress. They’re also free to argue that his investment arrangement doesn’t go far enough. It’s a free country (unless Bennett’s buddies at the DSA take over).
But if independent professionals really are making the trades without Kean’s knowledge or direction, saying Kean himself was sitting around buying and selling stocks — including while undergoing inpatient treatment — is a materially different allegation.
And it’s one Democrats continue to make.
