Anthony Scaramucci says the CLARITY Act's ban on federal officials sponsoring crypto doesn't cut it. He wants insider trading gone across the board — for everyone in government. The former White House communications director made the case this week as Congress races to finalize the bill before August recess.
Why the crypto ban isn't enough
Scaramucci argues that the current $180,000 annual salary for members of Congress pushes some toward trading on information they gather in office. His fix: borrow from Singapore, where officials draw multi-million dollar salaries in exchange for much stricter ethics enforcement. He previously called the CLARITY Act's ethics compromise 'dead on arrival,' and he's not backing down now.
The Pelosi record that keeps coming up
Public trading records show former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's portfolio has consistently beaten the S&P 500 and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. Her 2024 disclosures showed a 70.9% gain against the index's 24.9% return. Cumulative returns since 2014 are thousands of percentage points ahead. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna has accused Pelosi of trading on nonpublic information, though Pelosi has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
The STOCK Act's quiet rollback
Congress passed the STOCK Act in April 2012 to bar members from trading on nonpublic information. Then, a year later, they quietly amended it to scrap the requirement for a searchable online database of staff trades. The rollback passed by unanimous consent with no recorded vote. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has since pushed to revive stricter limits on congressional stock trading.
The updated CLARITY Act already bars the president and other federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. Whether Congress extends the same logic to its own stock trades remains an open question — and the bill's tight window before August recess isn't making it any easier.
