| Roughly 700 of his trades were reported months late, and the standard fine is $200. |
| LEAD ESSAY / 3 MIN / 3 DOCUMENTS / STORY FILE ARM-WMB |
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| Could you sell your old company's stock, buy into hundreds of others, and tell the public months later? |
| I couldn't, and I doubt you could either... but a U.S. senator did. The usual late fee is $200. Let me walk you through it, because each step is in a public filing. |
| Alan Armstrong ran the Williams Companies until 2025. It's a Tulsa firm that builds and runs natural gas pipelines. Oklahoma's governor then appointed him to the Senate, and he took Markwayne Mullin's seat on March 24. Within a week, his accounts bought at least $15,000 each in 70 companies, including defense contractors like RTX, Palantir and BAE Systems. |
| None of that breaks the law. Members of Congress may own and trade stock under the STOCK Act, a 2012 law. In plain English, you can trade, but you have to report each trade within 45 days. |
| Armstrong reported in July. By then, about 700 of his trades were months late, The Washington Sun found. And together they were worth $3.24 million to $16.05 million. One note on the filing said an outside advisor made the March trades for a direct indexing strategy. That's a portfolio of single stocks bought to copy a market index, in plain English. |
| My first thought was simple... what happens to a senator who misses 700 deadlines? |
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Two Williams sales, both on time |
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| Only two trades in that July report were on time, and I noticed both involved Williams. On June 22 he sold Williams stock options worth at least $250,000. Options, in plain English, are contracts to buy or sell a stock at a set price by a set date. Forty-eight hours later, he sold $5 million to $25 million of Williams stock. |
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| Senator Armstrong sold a significant amount of Williams stock |
| CHRISTINE HARBIN, ARMSTRONG SPOKESPERSON, VIA THE WASHINGTON SUN |
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| His spokesperson, Christine Harbin, pointed to those sales when The Sun asked about conflicts. She said he's focused on permitting reform. Put plainly, permitting reform means speeding up the federal approvals needed to build things like pipelines. And Williams builds pipelines. |
| So he held Williams stock while he pushed for faster pipeline approvals. I'd want to know what came next... August brought more Williams options, $16,002 to $65,000 worth over two days, his September filing shows. |
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| Now let me show you September. Sept. 8 is the date his joint account sold $250,001 to $500,000 of Williams stock. He disclosed it Oct. 21, 43 days later. Twenty-two days after that sale, the Senate took up the Stop Insider Trading Act, and he voted yes. |
| FILED / SENATE ROLL CALL VOTE 253 |
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| Senators voted 53 to 47 on Sept. 30 to begin debate on H.R. 7008, seven votes short of the 60 required. All 53 Republicans voted yea, Armstrong among them. Every Democrat and both independents voted nay. |
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| Here's what that bill would have done. It barred members, spouses and dependent children from buying individual stocks. But selling stayed legal, with public notice posted 7 to 14 days ahead. |
| Think about what that means for a seller like Armstrong. Under that bill, his August option buys would have been off limits. But a Williams sale worth up to $25 million could still go through with a week's notice. |
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A $200 fine for filing late |
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| What does it cost a senator to miss the 45-day deadline? Usually it's $200, the standard late fee. Nor would his office tell The Sun whether he'd paid it. You can check his vote yourself in the Senate's official roll call. I've checked, and his name is first in the yea column. |
| Democrats blocked the bill, and I'll grant they gave reasons. Senate Democrats called its limits too weak. And they objected to a voter ID provision Republicans had attached. |
| Meanwhile, Armstrong's term ends in January, because Oklahoma law bars him from running for the seat. And when you buy a pipeline stock, you don't get a vote on pipeline permits. Miss a tax deadline yourself, and the IRS penalty grows each month. Lawmakers get the vote and the $200 fee... and on Sept. 30, the Senate left that arrangement in place. |
