US Rep. Derrick Van Orden has “allowed congressional stock trading,” claims an ad from his Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke, while Van Orden responds in an ad that her assertion is “total bull$#!+” and that he supports a ban on members of Congress trading stocks and profiting from the inside information they receive on an almost-daily basis.
So who’s right? It depends on your definition of a ban.
Over the years, there have been many proposals to ban members of Congress from engaging in some form of financial transactions, but none have passed even as senators and representatives from both parties executed as much as half a billion dollars worth of stock trades from January 2025 to August 2026. (The exact amount is unknown because financial disclosure forms ask for ranges rather than precise dollar values.)
Poison pills and preferential exemptions
Different types of legislation have targeted different types of trading — from stocks and bonds to commodities, cryptocurrency, and other securities. Van Orden touts his support for the “Stop Insider Trading Act,” which supporters say will limit members, spouses and their dependents from trading individual stocks. However, it would let lawmakers keep the shares they already own. There would be exemptions for trusts and some other assets. And Republicans refused to add the president and members of the administration from the limits.
Republicans went on to add a “poison pill” to the bill — unrelated language related to a photo ID requirement when voting — assuring Democrats would not support the bill, giving Republicans a reason to claim Democrats voted against a stock trading ban.
A Democratic alternative, the “Restore Trust in Government Act,” expands a stock trading ban to the president, vice president, and their families, something promoted by Cooke.
“When I get to Congress, I’ll support a stock trading ban for Members of Congress AND the president and VP,” she posted to social media.
Van Orden: Trump isn’t insider trading
Van Orden acknowledged that members of both parties have engaged in stock trading while he has not — but he said he doesn’t believe President Donald Trump is using any inside information to personally profit from the presidency.
“You really think Donald Trump is sitting at the Resolute Desk at the computer pressing buttons?” Van Orden told TMZ, referring to a historic desk in the White House Oval Office. “The people who do Donald Trump’s stock trades and all that stuff are independent. Me, as a member of Congress, doing individual stock trading, I think, is baloney. The president’s not doing that.”
Days later, Trump posted to social media a cartoon of himself sitting at the Resolute Desk, following four computer monitors while trading stocks and claiming “I’ve made Hundreds of Billions of Dollars on Stocks, and many other type Holdings, for the U.S.A., not myself.” But there do not appear to be any indications that Trump transferred personal stock gains to the United States Treasury.
Trump has executed more than 20,000 stock trades since beginning his second term in the White House, more than all 535 members of Congress combined. His personal net worth has increased at least $2 billion through investments and businesses, about half of that in cryptocurrency.
The lack of limits on the president and other exemptions in the bill Van Orden is supporting led the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to call it “a joke.”
“It’s a farce that maintains the status quo and provides members of Congress with loopholes so that they can continue to enrich themselves, all while claiming to advance meaningful reform,” said CREW Executive Director Donald Sherman.
So as Van Orden talks up his support of a bill that purports to limit some congressional stock trading, critics like Cooke counter the bill is so watered-down compared to other proposals as to constitute tacit support of ongoing profiteering from inside information.
