Kate Bolduan gives a fresh take on todays top stories. Zeldin. This is a very serious allegation. He misunderstands, i think, that his failure to directly sell his own shares is whats at issue. Whats at issue is his provision of nonpublic information to his son and another so that they could cut their losses in their sales. That violates the mail fraud statutes, securities fraud statutes, and there is not really much of a defense if in fact the facts in the allegation are true. Michael, this is sdny indicting a sitting member of Congress Months before an election. We know prosecutors are confident but i mean how airtight does this case need to be . Well, two things. First, we know from the from that which happened during the last 2016 election that youre
not supposed to bring indictments against congressman and other political people within 60 days. So they just sort of snuck under the 60day donor election statute. Just. Yeah. But the fact is that, you treat public corruption in the sa
zeldin. this is a very serious allegation. he misunderstands, i think, that his failure to directly sell his own shares is what s at issue. what s at issue is his provision of non-public information to his son and another so that they could cut their losses in their sales. that violates the mail fraud statutes, securities fraud statutes, and there is not really much of a defense if in fact the facts in the allegation are true. michael, this is sdny indicting a sitting member of congress months before an election. we know prosecutors are confident but i mean how air-tight does this case need to be? well, two things. first, we know from the from that which happened during the last 2016 election that you re
to an election, stories like this, whether or not he ends up pleading guilty, whether or not he ends up being guilty, whether he is vindicated, they start to set in to a narrative. what i ve heard already from a number of democrats who are seizing on this not because they care about chris collins and not even because they think they can win or flip chris collins district, but this becomes a data point, that they talk about the people that are in power are corrupt. the people that are in power are part of the swamp. people that are in power are just rife with conflicts. if what s in the indictment is true, it is a pretty textbook case of securities fraud. here s the interesting element of that. you can actually pick out from his lawyer s statement what they re going for right now. securities fraud and frankly insider trading is rife with grey area. we ve seen security fraud indictments and convictions overturned in recent years when it comes it certain hedge funds, things. that n