A freshman Democrat congressman from the Manhattan district, including Wall Street, sold his shares of a struggling California bank just days before its stock began a precipitous decline.
On March 6, Congressman Dan Goldman sold shares in PacWest Bancorp for more than $15,000. Goldman’s sale couldn’t have come at a better time; the stock price dropped precipitously just two days later as investors fled from small and medium-sized banks in the wake of the impending demise of Silicon Valley Bank. The price of PacWest shares the day Goldman sold was $27.40. It has lost over 87 percent of its value, presently worth only $3.42.
It’s almost as if he knew what was coming.
Since being sworn in as a congressman in January, the Democratic multimillionaire and heir to the Levi Straus & Co. company has made over 500 trades for between $10 million and over $31 million. Goldman is one of the wealthiest members of Congress, with a net worth of $64 million to $253 million and more than 1,700 assets.
This comes at a time when Congress is considering a bipartisan bill forbidding members and their families from trading stock while in office.
Goldman serves on the Committee on Homeland Security and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. And, not so oddly, he invested up to $50,000 last month in Northrop Grumman, a defense firm.
Goldman is challenging former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) for the title of Congress’s most prolific stock trader, and such transactions are par for the course for him.
Goldman will likely face allegations that he is exploiting his position in Congress to profit from insider trading due to his persistent stock trading and proximity to the levers of power in the financial world.
During a field hearing on crime in Manhattan held by the Judiciary Committee on Monday, a mother whose Army veteran son was slain in 2018 gave him a tongue lashing.
Goldman acknowledged that Madeline Brame’s loss was “devastating,” but he said the Republican-led hearing was “a charade” to divert attention from Bragg’s felony prosecution against former President Trump.
Brame retorted. “You’re attempting to belittle me by assuming I don’t know what’s going on here, and that’s an insult.”
