Another one bites the dust, and this one was a long time coming. The question is, who else among the GOP grifter class will get dragged in along with Collins?
First, a little background…
Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) was an early Trump backer and remains one of his stalwart supporters. Collins is intimately tied to a small Australian pharmaceutical firm that, according to its claims, is working on immuno therapies that it hopes to sell to large pharma firms:
The Trump transition team on Health and Human Services is headed by the Republican Congressman from New York's 27th district, Chris Collins. The congressman was an early backer of Mr. Trump and thus received a powerful position on the team to select key administration personnel, including the new HHS secretary. Congressman Collins also happens to control at least 21.8% of Innate Immunotherapeutics. He personally is the company's largest shareholder while his various children make up the third and fourth largest holders of the company's stock. The fifth largest holder is a UBS financial advisor who lives in Congressman Collins district and appears to have a financial relationship with the congressman.
With that background, we now turn to a report out today...
One has to wonder if we’re witnessing the beginning of the GOP pulling away from Trump when The Hill, a right-leaning inside-the-Beltway rag, publishes a long “Exclusive” on how Chris Collins pumped the stock of an Aussie pharma company to House colleagues, including then-Congressman, now-HHS Secretary, Tom Price.
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) has boasted about how much money he’s made for other members of Congress by tipping them off to an Australia-based pharmaceutical company in which he is the largest stockholder, two GOP lawmakers told The Hill.
Collins, President Trump’s chief defender and unofficial spokesman on Capitol Hill, told a group of House GOP colleagues over dinner earlier this year that he had urged colleagues to invest in Innate Immunotherapeutics and made them plenty of money in the process, said one GOP lawmaker who was present for the conversation.
“He said that he’s made members money,” the GOP lawmaker told The Hill.
“Members of Congress?” a reporter asked.
“Yeah, on his stock tip,” the lawmaker replied.
Yes, this is stock in the same Australian pharmaceutical company Collins offered to HHS Secretary Tom Price at a discounted price while Price was still a member of the House, but rumored to be on the short list for a Trump Cabinet appointment, an appointment Collins controlled from his perch on Trump’s transition team:
In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, then-Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), had received a personal invitation from Collins last summer to buy between $50,000 and $100,000 of Innate stock at a discounted rate.
What was the discounted share price?
Collins’s chief of staff, Michael Hook, and former Rep. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.), now a lobbyist, also bought Innate stock at the discounted 18 cents-per-share rate.
The timing and price of the purchases, along with wild swings in the stock’s price in late January shortly after several House members bought stock, raises questions about what Collins knew and when he knew it. One needs hip waders to get through the neck-deep bullcrap flowing from the gaping maw of Rep. Markwayne Mullin:
Five other GOP lawmakers — Reps. Mike Conaway and John Culberson, both of Texas, Doug Lamborn (Colo.), Billy Long (Mo.) and Markwayne Mullin (Okla.) — have also purchased shares of Innate this year. But most have said they discovered the stock through media reports and denied they received a stock tip from Collins.
…
Mullin purchased between $100,000 and $250,000 of Innate shares on Jan. 12 of this year, according to a House financial disclosure report flagged by The Daily Beast.
“It was all over the news for Price,” Mullin, who is close to Collins, said in an interview Tuesday. “I didn’t know it had anything to do with Chris. Not at all. Of course, we’ve talked about it since then, but not before I purchased the stock.”
Uh-huh. And guess what happened to the stock in late January, just days after Mullin bought his stock?
Why the Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd share price is going gangbusters
Shares in Aussie biotech hopeful Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd (ASX: IIL) have gone into orbit today despite the company revealing a quarterly cash flow statement that hardly inspires evangelical-like confidence in the future.
For the quarter ending December 31 2016 it delivered a net operating cash loss of $1.78 million, with just $6 million of cash left on its balance sheet at the end of the period.
…
Mysterious price action
On January 27 the stock hit a high of $1.83 only to close at 78 cents just one trading day later on January 30 in some wild price action that has already attracted the attention of the regulator in terms of an ASX price query.
But was that price action really so “mysterious?” It seems that on
January 11, Tom Price, then involved in confirmation hearings to become HHS Secretary, said he would
divest his holdings in a number of pharma companies, including Innate Immunotherapeutics:
On Wednesday (
ed. January 11), Mr. Price, who as health secretary would oversee the Food and Drug Administration,
filed papers with the federal government saying he would divest himself of interests in several health care companies, including Innate.
It is not clear on precisely what day Price divested his interest in Innate, but from January 8 through January 27, the stock moved from 93 cents a share to $1.83 a share, a 97% leap, with little or no news that would account for such a leap. (The stock currently sits at 75 cents a share.)
According to Politico:
Several GOP lawmakers, including now Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, bought shares in Innate Immunotherapeutics. Price made more than $225,000 on his purchase, more than tripling his initial stake. Price's investment in Innate Immunotherapeutics became an issue in his confirmation hearings.
Collins is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics which probably won’t mean much given GOP control of the House.
Which makes today’s The Hill “Exclusive” all the more curious.
The question now is, will Price be indicted, too? What about Collins’ GOP House colleagues who benefited from Collins’ insider information? Will this story get bigger?
There has never been a more corrupt group in government than the assembled thieves, grifters and con artists associated with Trump and company.
