Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband sold 30,000 shares of Google stock in December — a month before the Justice Department and eight states sued the tech giant over alleged antitrust violations, according to a report.
Multimillionaire Paul Pelosi, 82, who runs a San Francisco-based investment and venture capital firm, sold the shares in Alphabet, Google’s holding company, in three different transactions between Dec. 20 and Dec. 28, 2022, Fox Business reported on Wednesday, citing congressional disclosure files.
The amounts ranged between $500,001 and $1 million, the Jan. 12 Periodic Transaction Report filing by Nancy Pelosi said.
The transactions yielded capital gains of more than $200 but the total amount is unclear, Fox reported.
The Justice Department and eight states announced on Tuesday that they were suing Google for monopolizing the digital advertising market.
“We allege that Google has used anti-competitive, exclusionary and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference addressing the lawsuit.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who on Tuesday introduced a bill — the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act — took a shot at the former Democratic leader on Twitter.
“People have asked why I named my stock trade ban the PELOSI Act. Now you know,” he said, linking to reports about the Google stock.
His bill would bar lawmakers and their spouses from owning and trading stocks while in office.
”When voters send members of Congress to Washington, they expect them to do the people’s business, not to be day trading on the stock market, not to be using the information they get from briefings to go and make a quick buck on Wall Street,” Hawley told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Wednesday.
Paul Pelosi also came under criticism last summer when it was revealed that he sold up to $5 million worth of shares in computer chipmaker Nvidia days before Congress approved a $280 billion package to boost the semiconductor industry.
Fox Business said Pelosi’s office did not respond to a request for comment.