NY GOP Rep. suggests ethics rules should change following Collins arrest
New York Republican Rep. Tom Reed said Thursday that Congress should pursue ethics reform that would prevent conflicts of interest following fellow New York GOP Rep. Chris Collins' recent arrest for alleged insider trading.
Posted — UpdatedReed told CNN's Poppy Harlow on "Newsroom" that he agrees with the assessment that members of Congress should not be allowed to sit on the boards of publicly traded companies while serving as public officials.
"Obviously, any type of conflict of interest, we need to do a better job in Congress to send the message to the people that we're making sure that the integrity of the House is in place, and that no one is above the law," Reed said.
Reed added that barring members of the House from serving on company boards is "an area of reform that needs to occur."
"Yeah, that makes some sense to me as additional reforms going forward," he continued.
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged Collins, his son and another man with 13 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud and false statements stemming from an alleged insider trading scheme centered on an Australian pharmaceutical company, Immunotherapeutics Limited, of which Collins was a board member. The charges were a result of the defendants acting, and in some cases trading on, nonpublic information about the results of a drug trial.
Reed declined to call on Collins to resign from his seat over the charges, saying that the "decision needs to rest with him and his family."
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