| Blocked in the Senate on Sept. 30: the bill that would have barred that purchase. |
| LEAD ESSAY / 4 MIN / 4 DOCUMENTS / STORY FILE CONG-WIED |
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| Could you buy a stock in February and then help write the rules on that company's fees in March? |
| At most jobs, you'd be fired for that. Company lawyers would flag the trade the day it cleared. You'd spend a week explaining yourself... But a member of Congress works under looser rules. My job today is to show you how loose. |
| Let me show you one case from the public filings. It's modest by Washington standards. Nowhere in the record is there a broken rule. And that's what bothers me. |
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Rep. Tony Wied and a $100,000 Visa buy |
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| Tony Wied is a first-term Republican from northeast Wisconsin. Before Congress, he owned a chain of gas stations around Green Bay. Today he sits on the House Agriculture Committee, which writes the farm bill. That bill sets the rules for SNAP, the federal food aid program, and for EBT cards. In plain English, an EBT card is the debit card that carries a family's SNAP money. |
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| On Feb. 11 and Feb. 12, Wied's joint account sold shares of Block, the company behind Cash App. Each sale fell between $50,001 and $100,000. Eight days after the first sale, the account bought Visa. This purchase, on Feb. 19, was also $50,001 to $100,000... Early in March, his committee took up the farm bill. His amendment went into it. The amendment makes permanent a ban on processing fees for EBT cards. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that change touches companies such as Visa and Block, which earn money on EBT transactions. |
| So did the Visa trade make him money? I can't tell you. Neither can the forms. Lawmakers report only dollar ranges, so a $50,001 trade and a $100,000 trade look the same on paper. Wied's office told the Badger Project in January that an independent advisor manages his trades and that he follows the ethics rules. Ethics experts who reviewed his record for the Journal Sentinel didn't accuse him of breaking a law. I'll grant him all of that. |
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Five pages and 25 trades in February |
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| Here's the paperwork, since it's the only view you and I ever get. Within 45 days of a stock trade over $1,000, a member must file a periodic transaction report. Think of it as a receipt with the price shown only as a range. He filed his in March, and I read every line of it. Between Feb. 3 and Feb. 19, his household bought $760,000 to $1.6 million of stock. Sales ran $600,000 to $1.5 million, by the Badger Project's count. |
| FILED / WIED PERIODIC TRANSACTION REPORT, MARCH 2026 |
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| Submitted to the House Clerk in March 2026, the report lists 25 transactions made between Feb. 3 and Feb. 19. Two Block sales and one Visa purchase each fall in the $50,001 to $100,000 band. Its largest single line is a purchase of $500,001 to $1 million in Treasury bills. |
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| Now look at what came next. During April, Wied became the top Republican on a Small Business subcommittee that oversees federal contracting, the Journal Sentinel reported. By August, his account was buying software makers such as Salesforce and ServiceNow. Several of those trades ran $15,001 to $50,000 apiece. Those two firms are ones the paper flagged as companies whose business could overlap with the panel's work. I'm not calling that a crime. Judge it for yourself... |
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| Congress had a chance to stop purchases like the Visa buy. Last month, on Sept. 30, the Senate voted 53 to 47 on the Stop Insider Trading Act. Seven votes short of the 60 it needed, the bill stalled. Senators were voting on cloture, which in plain English is the vote to end debate and take up a bill. Under the bill, members, spouses and dependent kids couldn't buy new stocks, Roll Call reported. Selling would still be allowed with seven to 14 days of public notice. Democrats voted no as a bloc. They objected to an unrelated voter ID provision and called the ban too weak. Republicans said Democrats were playing politics weeks before an election. |
| Had that bill been law, the Feb. 19 Visa purchase couldn't have happened. Both Block sales could have, with a week's notice. Best of all is Wied's annual financial disclosure, filed May 15. There, a $174,000 House salary sits beside a Block stake worth $100,001 to $250,000 at the end of 2025. |
| You can't trade on a committee's calendar, because it's never shown to you. Your taxes fund SNAP. And you learn about a member's trade up to 45 days after it clears... Roll Call reported that the failed vote ended the chance of action before senators left to campaign for the Nov. 3 election. I'd keep that date in mind. Because the next farm bill can still be written by members who buy first and tell you later. |
