Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw responded to allegations of not disclosing stock transactions as a COVID-relief bill was being debated in an exclusive Tuesday interview with the Daily Caller.
Crenshaw reportedly made half a dozen purchases as the CARES Act was in a three-day period between when it passed the House on March 25, 2020 and when former President Donald Trump had signed the legislation on March 27, The Daily Beast first reported. Crenshaw voted in favor of the $2 trillion stimulus package.
The problem with the purchases is that Crenshaw did not disclose the transactions until months after when he corrected the records to add the purchases, which could be in violation of the STOCK Act, according to The Daily Beast.
Crenshaw dismissed the allegations in an interview with the Caller, joking that they call him the “Wolf of Washington.” Crenshaw said the stocks he purchased were essentially advice from Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and “Mad Money” on CNBC.
“They call me wolf of Washington out here. We get on my phone app and buying a couple stocks based on what Barstool Sports tells me and what Mad Money tells me. I mean that’s basically — so I think the highest stock purchase was around three thousand dollars. You know it’s just so ridiculous that the article said one hundred and twenty thousand it’s just a straight-up lie,” Crenshaw told the Daily Caller.
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Crenshaw said the amount of money he spent on the stocks was being exaggerated by the media, saying the most he spent on one purchase was around $3,000. Crenshaw said the media reported he purchased $120,000 worth of stock. Crenshaw also said he used to day trade “a lot.” (RELATED: Rep. Dan Crenshaw Responds To Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Cried In The Back’ Tweet, Receives Pushback)
“It’s like you know I’m a guy in his mid-thirties who has been in the military his whole life, you know I used to day trade a lot and stopped when I couldn’t tell what the market was doing anymore. Then you buy on the dip, okay, that’s what Mad Money says to do, so yeah,” Crenshaw continued.
The Texas Republican then said he believes he is “uncancelable.” Crenshaw said he did not know he was supposed to disclose the individual stock purchases and said he will likely have to pay a fine.
“It’s a really silly story, I’m uncancelable I think,” Crenshaw said. “I didn’t know I was supposed to. We are supposed to do annual financial disclosures and so I do it annually, I probably should have known that with individual stock purchases we are supposed to do it within thirty days, I didn’t so there’s probably a fine I have to pay,” he said.
“I don’t know if they are trying to cancel me but they are certainly trying to create something out of it and it’s like, no, guys. You know these rules are — there are members of Congress that have millions and millions of dollars. I’m a guy who has a few thousand just to invest sometimes and that’s what we did. So, yeah, it is what it is,” Crenshaw added.
The March 2020 purchases were reportedly the first time Crenshaw had bought any individually traded stock since he was elected in 2018.
