Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. 2016. He was a very close ally of tom price, instrumental in price being chosen as Hhs Secretary. You know price has since left that post. Collins attorneys have released an official statement saying quote, we will answer the charges filed against Congress Collins in court. And will mount a vigorous defense to clear his good name. It is notable that even the government does not allege that congress man collins traded a single share of innate therapeutic stock. We are confident hell be completely vindicated and exonerated. The complaint also alleged that collins was at the white house attending the Congressional Picnic when he conducted some of the activity that led to the Insider Trading charges. This one is extraordinary for me. Hes nots just being investigated. Hes not just being charged. He was arrested. They knocked on his door and arrested him. A serving congressman. Wow. Joining me now nbc news
investigation
investigations reporter tom winter live on the phone and former u.s. attorney for the district of new york. how does this go down? well, stephanie, as you said and as the diindictment says, t congressman was at the white house for a congressional picnic and apparently, according to the dime he received information he s on the board of directors of this immunotherapeutics, a company out of australia and received information that a drug trial was not going as well. as a matter of fact a completely clinny cal failure. according to the indictment he picked up the phone and calls his son. stock had been held pending news in australia, meaning no shares could be traded in australia, which is where the congressman had all of his shares. however, his son and several relatives and associates of his had their shares held in the united states. they were traded over the
the job. but when he held office he was also involved in some of these tech companies. these tech stocks, though he didn t sit on the board. that s an interesting question. this is the indictment about 30 pages. what the law says is ultimately you can t tip people if you have material nonpublic information and have you a duty of obligation, a if you had fiduciary yaduty to the company. you can t tip people who then go on to trade. you need a tip, obligation and trade. indictment says they have all of those things here in this case with the congressman. what s striking to me is just how sloppy some of this allegedly was. you often see people going to extreme lengths to hide their trail. they use burner phones, meetings this indictment alleged he got an e-mail directly from the company about a failure of its major drug. its only significant drug, while he was at the white house
failed, he passed that information on to his son, but it wasn t public information yet. his son then allegedly told several others and all made quote timely trades company s stock. once news went public the stock plunged by 92%. indictment says the defendants avoided more than $768 grand in losses by selling their stock before the results went public. wo joining me now capitol hill correspondent and anchors. guys, i want to start with a quick flashback. january, 2017. jake sermherman tweets this. flash back overheard in the capital new york represent chris collins talking loudly into a phone off the house floor bragging about how many millionaires i ve made in buffalo in the last month. bragging about a stock he shared
counter market here. so those shares were not held. that allowed his son, according to the indictment, to be able to place a number of orders and safe hold on a second. when you talk about the but hold on a second. when you talk about the trading halting. that s for regular shareholders. if you re on the board of directors, aren t you held to a different standard? that s exactly correct. that s the reason why and the congressman s attorneys are absolutely correct. congressman is not charged with selling shares or doing trading. as a matter of fact he lost a significant amount of money. but when you have nonpublic information about the company that may be material to the company in it stock, you cannot share that information before it s made public. so i can know about it because i m on the board of directors but i can t share that with somebody else before the company released a statement.