| The bill exempts the president, the vice president and the cabinet. |
| LEAD ESSAY / 4 MIN / 6 DOCUMENTS / STORY FILE CONG-BAN |
|
| How many stock trades did you make last year? |
| I'll guess it was a small number. Maybe a dozen. Or none at all, because you bought a fund and left it alone, and that is what most of us do. President Trump disclosed more than 21,000 trades in 2025. They sat across eight accounts. Those accounts held at least $858 million in assets, and CNBC counted the trades out of his annual financial disclosure. The White House says he cannot direct a single transaction. He still owns the gains... |
| So here is what Congress did about the practice. I want you to watch where the bill stops. On July 22 the House passed H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act, by 232 votes to 198. The bill bars members of Congress, their spouses and their dependent children from buying stock while they serve. And it ends there. The president sits outside it, along with the vice president and the cabinet. |
|
What H.R. 7008 covers, and where it ends |
|
| Let me walk you through the mechanics. I think the design matters more than the headline here. A covered person cannot buy a security issued by a publicly traded company. They keep whatever they held before taking office, and they can still sell. But they have to file public notice first, between seven and fourteen days ahead. That notice goes online through the Clerk of the House or the Secretary of the Senate. Break the rule and the ethics panels can charge $2,000, or 10 percent of the transaction value, whichever is bigger. They take the gain back too. |
|
| "If you want to day trade, there's a place for that." |
| BRYAN STEIL, VIA ROLL CALL |
|
|
| Steil chairs the Committee on House Administration, and he wrote the bill. I read his floor remarks. Hakeem Jeffries said it falls short. His reason was the carve-out: the president, the vice president and the cabinet stay outside its reach. Thirteen Democrats voted yes. Most of his caucus voted no. |
| Republicans also attached a voter identification provision before the floor vote. So Senate Democrats got a second reason to leave the bill alone. Josh Hawley has pushed a harder version for years. I have watched it go nowhere. His covers the president and the vice president, and it forces divestment. It cleared the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and it has sat there since. Leadership has scheduled no floor time for either measure... |
|
The 49 votes that died on Tuesday |
|
| But a second bill this year did reach the executive branch, and I want you to see how it ended. It went down on Tuesday. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, filed as H.R. 3633, needed 60 votes to clear cloture in the Senate. Forty-nine senators voted yes. Fifty voted no, including four Republicans: Susan Collins, Josh Hawley, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis. Tillis then filed a motion so the bill can come back. |
| FILED / DIGITAL ASSET MARKET CLARITY ACT, SENATE TEXT |
|
| The Senate draft runs past 600 pages and splits crypto oversight between the SEC and the CFTC, with the smaller agency taking the larger share. An ethics title sits inside it. That title covers federally elected officials, their spouses, and the stakes they hold in the sector. |
|
| Senate Republicans had spent the weekend rewriting the ethics section to buy Democratic votes. I want you to see what was in it. The language would have stopped federally elected officials and their spouses from issuing their own cryptocurrencies. That ends the $TRUMP coin, and the president agreed to abide by it. Officials would also have had to divest significant stakes in the sector. State attorneys general would have gained standing to sue. |
|
Todd Blanche, and the clause he would have enforced |
|
| And the enforcement line is where the votes went. Todd Blanche runs the Justice Department. He worked as Trump's defense attorney before he got the job. Elizabeth Warren argued the divestment wording was loose enough for a president to sidestep. You can read the Senate text and weigh it for yourself. |
| I keep coming back to one number. Trump disclosed in June that he and his family earned $1.4 billion from crypto ventures last year. No president has ever reported a sum in that range while in office. So the clause that died on Tuesday pointed at $1.4 billion. And the department that would have enforced it answers to the man who holds it. |
| Here is where that leaves you. Congress spent this year drafting two rules against officials trading on what they learn at work. One cleared the House and exempts the president. The other died 11 votes short of debate. Both were sold to you as ethics reform. And both stop at the same door. You get no 45-day disclosure window, no ethics panel and no exemption, and your broker does not care who you had lunch with. |
