We just published the first of our common-sense bills — reforms Congress could pass tomorrow, no constitutional amendment required. It's the most broadly popular one on the list, and also the one Washington keeps not quite finishing: a ban on stock trading by the officials who can move markets. You can read the whole thing on our new stock-trading-ban action page. Here's the case, with the receipts — and why our version does something the bills in Congress don't: it covers the President, too.
The Problem Crosses Both Parties
Public office is supposed to be a public trust. But the people who set tariffs, hand out contracts, write regulations, and steer the economy are often in a position to know — or to decide — something that moves a company's stock before the rest of us find out. When they trade individual stocks anyway, the suspicion writes itself.
This is not a one-party problem, and we won't pretend it is. In early 2020, after private Senate briefings on the coming pandemic, several senators of both parties — Republicans Richard Burr, Kelly Loeffler, and James Inhofe, and Democrat Dianne Feinstein — sold off stock before the COVID market crash. The Justice Department eventually dropped the probes into most of them, but the episode told the public everything it needed to know about how the game looks from the outside. (CNBC) Congress responded to years of this with the STOCK Act of 2012, which requires members to disclose their trades. Disclosure was a start — but it didn't stop the conduct or restore trust. It just left a paper trail.
The Bigger Hole: The President Is Exempt
Here's the part almost nobody knows. The main federal criminal conflict-of-interest law — 18 U.S.C. §208 — forces virtually every executive-branch official to step aside from decisions that affect their own finances. But that law specifically exempts the President and the Vice President. (Cornell Law School; Office of Government Ethics) The two officials with the most power to move markets are the only ones the core conflict law doesn't touch.
And this isn't hypothetical. The starkest current example is the sitting President's own family crypto venture: according to his 2025 financial disclosure, President Trump reported over $1 billion in crypto-related income, including roughly half a billion dollars from sales of tokens tied to World Liberty Financial — a company in which the family holds a large stake while the administration is actively shaping U.S. crypto policy, and which took a reported $500 million investment linked to a foreign royal family. (Time; Fortune)
Now — be clear about the principle here, because this is a party built on holding everyone to the same standard. The point isn't one man. A Democratic president with a family business, a favored industry, or a big stock portfolio would be exactly as dangerous, and exactly as bound by our bill. The office that can do the most to move a market should be held to the most, not carved out of the rules entirely. Right now it's carved out. That's backwards, and we fix it.
Congress Is Finally Moving — But Splitting It Up
The good news: this is one of the most bipartisan ideas in the country, and Congress is finally acting. There's the bipartisan ETHICS Act — introduced by Republicans and Democrats together — and the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, both of which would make members divest their individual stocks or use a real blind trust. (Congress.gov — ETHICS Act; Congress.gov — S. 1879)
The catch: the reforms have been chopped into separate, weaker bills — one for Congress, a much softer one for the President, and yet another for the courts. Splitting it up is exactly how good ideas get watered down, and how the most powerful office ends up with the weakest rule. Our bill refuses to play that game. It puts Congress, the President, the Vice President, and senior officials under one clean standard.
What Our Bill Does
It covers everyone who can move a market — members of Congress, the President and Vice President, senior Senate-confirmed appointees, and their spouses and dependent children (a ban you can dodge through a spouse is no ban at all). It bans the individual stuff — single stocks, company bonds, options, futures, commodities, and single-company crypto tokens — while leaving normal investing wide open: index funds, diversified funds, and Treasuries are all still fine. You comply by divesting or moving holdings into a genuine blind trust within about six months. And it has the teeth the disclosure-only laws lacked: civil penalties, mandatory disgorgement of any profits made in violation, referrals for willful cases, and enforcement published every year.
The Honest Part
We'll be straight about the one hard question, because we always try to be. Applying a divestiture rule to a sitting President by ordinary law raises real separation-of-powers issues — it's part of why that §208 exemption exists — and some scholars think the presidency can only be fully bound by the President's own choice or by a constitutional amendment. We think the conflict is serious enough to try by statute now, and we wrote the bill so that even if a court narrowed how it applies to the President, it would still bind the Vice President, all of Congress, and the senior executive branch without missing a beat. Start now, the fast way; add a constitutional backstop later if it's needed.
What You Can Do
This is the rare reform the public already wants by about three to one — the only real opposition is the small group it would limit. On our stock-trading-ban action page you'll find the full bill text, a plain-language explainer, and a one-page summary as downloadable Word documents, plus a ready-to-send letter for your Representative and Senators.
Read it, download it, and ask your member of Congress one simple question: will you back a ban that covers everyone who can move a market — Congress and the President — or just the watered-down version? The answer will tell you a lot.
Sources
• 18 U.S.C. §208 — Cornell Law School / Legal Information Institute
• Elements of 18 U.S.C. §208 — U.S. Office of Government Ethics
• DOJ investigation of 2020 senator stock sales — CNBC
• Trump reports over $1 billion in crypto income — TIME
• World Liberty Financial foreign investment and conflicts — Fortune
• ETHICS Act (H.R. 4890) — Congress.gov
• Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act (S. 1879) — Congress.gov