Posted on 08/11/2018 8:21:05 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) announced Saturday he is suspending his reelection campaign in light of charges of insider trading.
“After extensive discussions with my family and my friends over the last few days, I have decided that it is in the best interests of the constituents of NY-27, the Republican Party and President Trump’s agenda for me to suspend my campaign for re-election to Congress,” Collins said in a press release.
The Justice Department charged Collins, 68, with securities fraud and lying to the FBI about his efforts to tip off family members with nonpublic stock information to help them avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment losses.
Collins’s case centers on Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australia-based bio-pharmaceutical firm that had been developing a drug to treat advanced multiple sclerosis. But when clinical trials showed the drug didn’t work, Collins — at the time firm’s largest shareholder and a board member — called his son, Cameron, and told him to sell off the stock before the news was made public, prosecutors alleged in the indictment.
Cameron Collins, 25, and his future father-in-law, Stephen Zarsky, 66, were also charged with insider trading and lying to federal investigators.
All three pleaded not guilty.
Collins, who was also the first member of Congress to endorse Trump for president in 2016, made the announcement Saturday after initially pledging to run for re-election on Wednesday.
“I will mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name," Collins said. "I look forward to being fully vindicated and exonerated.”
This week, he faced growing pressure to resign from the Buffalo-area congressional seat he’s held since 2013. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) removed Collins from his position on the Energy and Commerce Committee and called for the Ethics Committee to investigate.
While Ryan and his GOP leadership team did not publicly call for Collins to step down, GOP sources said there was a “behind-the-scenes” effort in both Washington and New York to convince the defiant congressman that resignation was the best thing for the party three months before the crucial midterm elections.
In the days since Collins’s indictment and arrest Wednesday, there were a flurry of text messages and phone calls between Republican lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides, strategists and lobbyists concerned that the Collins corruption case could put his ruby-red seat at risk and harm other vulnerable Republicans on the ballot, GOP sources said.
Some of these Republicans in Washington had been urging New York Republicans to personally appeal to Collins to resign, the sources said, making the case to him that he’s in an “untenable position.”
The pressure campaign took place mostly out of public view. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) have been silent on the matter.
“No one is above the law, but Chris deserves his day in court and we will wait to see what unfolds,” said New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox.
But one former Collins supporter, David Gunner, the highway superintendent of East Aurora in Collins’s district, circulated a public letter to his fellow New York Republicans on Friday calling on the former Erie County executive to quit Congress.
“I believe Collins has done good things for Erie County and our Congressional District. Many times, he’s made us proud. But this insider trading scandal has put our district in real peril,” Gunner wrote. “If he runs, I don’t think he can win. I don’t care how much money he has, he can’t buy this seat — the good people of NY27 won’t stand for it.”
In his open letter, Gunner argued that if Collins continued to remain on the Nov. 6 ballot, he would be a drag on GOP candidates down ballot, including state Assemblyman Ray Walter and local office holders. Nationally, the Collins controversy could cause Republicans to lose control of the House majority, Gunner said.
The charges against Collins’s son were considered important leverage to convincing the congressman to relinquish his seat, said one New York Republican source. Collins could strike a deal with prosecutors, offering to plead guilty in exchange for his son and Zarsky avoiding jail time.
“A natural conversation between the U.S. attorney and Collins’s attorneys is to go easy on the son and father in law if Collins resigns,” the New York source said. “I’m sure that’s a conversation that is going on right now.”
A spokesman for Collins’s attorneys at Baker Hostetler did not return a call for comment prior to his Saturday announcement.
Collins’s situation is reminiscent of former Rep. Michael Grimm, another New York Republican who in 2014 was charged by the Justice Department with 20 counts of tax evasion. Grimm, a brash New Yorker like Collins, fought the charges, ran for reelection that year, and won.
But that December, Grimm struck a deal with prosecutors, pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion and resigned his Staten Island congressional seat. He served seven months in prison.
In an interview with The New York Times, Grimm said Collins is in for a rough ride, especially once he returns to Washington from the August recess. But he urged his former House colleague to just focus on the work.
“He’s going to have a really, really difficult emotional time,” Grimm told The Times. “And whether he knows it or not, a lot of Washington is going to look at him as a pariah. ...
“He should go right back to his job and remain professional.”
A sign of how tough it’s going to get for Collins: A day after his indictment, fellow New York Republican, GOP Rep. Tom Reed, teamed up with Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) to bar lawmakers from following in Collins’s footsteps and serving on boards of publicly traded companies.
Reed, however, stopped short of calling for Collins to resign.
“I recognize how serious the allegations are and how difficult this is for Chris and his family,” Reed told The Hill. “And they will have to make their own decision on how best to proceed.”
It is not clear what Republicans' next steps will be in Collins' district. Although he will suspend his campaign, he already won the GOP primary in his district and will likely remain on the ballot.
He added he will continue serving the rest of his term and “fight the meritless charges brought against me.”
Bellavia enlisted in the United States Army in July 1999 and deployed to Iraq after serving in Kosovo:
Bellavia would be OUTSTANDING.
Weren’t congressmen exempt from inside trading laws until the mid 90’s?
Why didn’t he just set up a foundation...?
Let me see if I understand this:
If I believe, based on interpretation of the evidence that something good is happening with Company X,so I invest in it, that’s smart investing.
But if I have certain knowledge that something good is happening with Company X, so I invest in it, that’s a crime.
Does that make sense?
This is simply desperate Democrats trying anything to steal control of Congress by any means necessary, air or foul.
“If I believe, based on interpretation of the evidence that something good is happening with Company X,so I invest in it, that’s smart investing.”
That’s not Insider Trading.
Using information that is not available to others is Insider Trading.
Wise decision. Democrats like Menendez get party and media cover. Republicans are left rotting.
I’ve never been sure why that’s illegal.
I give props to the Congressman for withdrawing to remove the risk of losing the seat. I have no idea of his actual guilt or innocence.
Can he win?
If their financial disclosure forms are any indicator, the vast majority if them are doing this.
1 down and 534 to go.
It’s a republican district. Democrat is a no-name who doesn’t even live in the district. Bellavia is a radio talk show host, so he is well-known. Slam dunk.
I’d bet that a lot of them in congress are engaged in insider trading. Not just this guy, and you don’t have to be on the board of directors. You just need information that isn’t shared with the public, and you know, there’s a lot of information not shared with the public in congress.
There are two sides to every transacation. If I buy shares of stock, it means you or someone like you is selling yours. If I bought a peice of land from you at the going rate but then a month later some company announced it was buying up land at 10x the going rate because of oil exploration or something, you might wonder if the buyer knew this and cheated you. Same thing.
Bingo! How do these poor public servants amass tens of millions of dollars? And giving a speech for a half millon dollars? Isn't that really open bribery? Why does Martha Stewart go to jail but these clowns walk free?
+1
Thanks. That’s good to know that ‘Rats won’t be picking up unexpected flip.
Bellavia has name recognition in the area.
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