You can commit the dumbest crime possible as long as your buddy has the power of the pardon.
They may say “greed is good” but they don’t say it is smart.
It is dumb because he is a congressman and he thought he could get away with it because he truly believed congressmen aren’t held to the same standards as the rest of us.
The man is ethically challenged, but that just means he is a Republican House member.
They just couldn’t help but laugh
Collins was simply stepping up to the trough, as he was next in line to score. This is a feature, not bug, of modern politicians. They think that they are elite and sophisticated because they politely take turns stealing money.
“No one could have predicted” that a GOP Congresscritter would be both mendacious and stupid.
Laughter is the best medicine for these clowns.
“It’s the dumbest insider trading crime I’ve ever seen,” - CNN legal analyst Paul Callan
Clearly another instance of Fake News from CNN trying to cast a simple case of fortuitous happenstance as a crime to impugn the integrity of a Trump loyalist. There is nothing unethical, let alone illegal, about telling your son about the failed drug trial a week before the public announcement, it’s what any good father would do (c.f. Giuliani - Trump, Jr. meeting). And how was Rep. Collins supposed to know that his son would then sell 1,776,114 shares to avoid a $570,900 in losses.
He is absolutely right, Congress members aren’t held to the same standards as the rest of us. That doesn’t mean they get away with everything.
I’m shocked to see Tom Price’s name associated with this wrongdoing!
Actually, what makes it “dumbest” is that the conspirators used traceable cell-phone calls and text messages to conduct their conspiracy: “dumb” in itself but “dumbest” because they knew they had been under observation by certain authorities and had little reason to believe said observation had been terminated.
It’s reasonable to say that a decent IQ is not a prerequisite to be a member of this party, despite reports to the contrary.
I am not surprised. He probably made his own money in equally corrupt fashion but didn’t get caught because he planned his crimes carefully.
What I suspect happened here is that he had been telling lots of his friends that the stock was hot expecting the clinical trials to succeed. And those stock tips would be buying him lots of influence. Then when the trials turned out to be a failure, suddenly he risks going from hero to goat and so he panics and tells them to sell to protect his own position. Only some of the people he tells probably hadn’t bought the stock and so they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by knifing a Trumper in the back.
I have to agree, and what it really shows is not that the crime is dumb, but that Collins is really (a) stupid, or (b) arrogant. Did he think that when family members of board members sold right before bad results came out that someone would not figure it out?
The whole TRUMP brand/gig is build on stupidity/gulibility and its no surprise that when someone who was a early supporter of a fraud like Trump would be put near responsibility they would act out of self interest, with evidently no thought of the legal consequences or more importantly risk of getting caught.
If you think this is a dumb crooked Republican…just wait until the people see the piles of evidence on Trump and his 2 grease ball sons and his little princess in the closet Ivanka.
Keep at least 100 cells vacant for Trump and his crooked crime mob including his 3 buddies down in Mar-a-Lago who have been secretly taking VA money and funnelling through their own so called healthcare companies that are mere shell operations (money laundering with Trump at Mar-a-Lago).
There is a reason Trump spends so much time at Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster…he doesn’t keep visitor records like he required at the White House and Camp David. So he’s keeping his mob associates secret from the public…until people inside the government are sickened by the level of corruption and spill the beans!
That sounds about right.
It’s called Martha Stewart Syndrome. She made a piddling $30k on inside stock tip. If she had just fessed up and told the truth she would have got a slap on the wrist. But she lied to the feds and they don’t like that.
WTF…The FEC should be all over this WITH FBI ASSISTANCE…
What’s always bugged me about Martha Stewart’s case was that she received a call from her broker to suggest she should sell, and she did. Then, when cornered, the broker sold her out.
I thought the reason one hired brokers was for financial advice. It just never seemed quite fair to go after her, and I still think if she were a man the case would have been dropped.