Rep. Mo Brooks failed to report up to $50,000 in sales of Pfizer stock for nearly two months — a violation of the STOCK Act, which requires members of Congress to disclose their stock purchases and sales in a timely fashion, according to extensive reporting by Business Insider.
Brooks, the front-runner in the race for a U.S. Senate seat, purchased the pharmaceutical company’s stock despite publicly criticizing both the vaccine-maker and the vaccine. He sold the stock on Aug. 16, according to Business Insider, and didn’t report the transaction until Oct. 14 — nearly a month after the 30-day deadline imposed by the STOCK Act.
In an interview with Business Insider, Brooks’ wife, Martha, took the blame for the violation, saying she simply missed the deadline and that Mo Brooks was unaware of the sale of the stock.
“Pfizer came and went and Mo didn’t even know we owned it,” Martha Brooks said in the Business Insider interview.
Martha Brooks also said that a “financial advisor” told her she should purchase the Pfizer stock in March 2020, and also advised her to sell in August. The Brooks family purchased as much as $30,000 in Pfizer stock during transactions in March 2020 and July 2020, according to Business Insider. That was in addition to already owning $20,000 worth of the stock, which they received in 2019 as part of an inheritance.
Congressmen late filing their disclosures are supposed to face a minimum $200 fine. However, that fine is typically waived if the disclosure arrives within a month.
