Howard Swint said yesterday that during the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) traded Citigroup stock based on non public inside information.<\/p>\n
Swint is running against Capito in the Second Congressional District of West Virginia.<\/p>\n
Swint says that on November 18, 2008, Congresswoman Capito and her husband Charles Capito sold between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of Citigroup stock and avoided massive losses.<\/p>\n
Swint says that day, Citigroup stock traded for $83.60.<\/p>\n
The very next day the stock dropped to $64.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what makes this transaction even more suspicious is the fact that on the very same day they sold, November 18th, 2008, they also purchased Citigroup stock call options,\u201d Swint said.\t\u201cThis meant they were placing their bets on what they believed was market-moving information they could profit on in the future in the very same stock, they just had to dump it first to avoid the massive losses the very next day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they would be kind enough to share with the public the strike price and expiration date of that Citigroup call option contract we could know for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil then what we do know for sure is that Congresswoman Capito and her husband managed to profit during the depths of the financial crisis through a $50,000 capital gain from Citigroup stock trades while American investors and pension funds were realizing the massive losses.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to note that all the while Congresswoman Capito had access to non-public information in Citigroup through the House Financial Services Committee that is charged with the regulatory oversight of the too-big-to-fail Wall Street bank.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCongresswoman Capito and the Committee so thoroughly failed in their first stewardship responsibility that Citigroup required not one or two but required three massive government bailouts that took the nation\u2019s economy to the brink of collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me the most egregious fact is that all the while Congresswoman Capito continued to receive massive campaign contributions from the same executives they were supposed to be regulating and today none of them have been brought to justice for their crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis could have all been avoided if the obvious conflict of interest associated with her husband\u2019s employment as a Citigroup executive had been acted upon by the House Ethics Committee.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCapito\u2019s Zoology degree made her the least qualified person in all of Congress to sit on the Committee and her husband is obviously not a blind trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the CFO of Citigroup had made those trades on the same day she would probably have been prosecuted and sent to Alderson federal prison,\u201d Swint said.<\/p>\n
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Howard Swint said yesterday that during the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) traded Citigroup stock based on non public inside information. Swint is running against Capito in the Second Congressional District of … Continue reading