Breitbart Revives a 2010 Stock Sale by Sherrod Brown's Family Trust Days Before His Ohio Senate Vote
The column says a trust Brown oversaw sold up to $15,000 of Applied Materials stock a month after a meeting with the company's CFO, and that he later admitted not reporting it. Brown has not been quoted in the piece.
Breitbart is pressing an old stock transaction against Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown as he tries to win back his Senate seat from Republican Sen. Jon Husted next week.
The sale. According to Breitbart, which cites a report from The Hill on the meeting, Brown and several other senators met in June 2010 with the Applied Materials CFO and other executives over cap-and-trade climate legislation. A month later, the Emily C. Brown Trust, where he was a trustee, sold Applied Materials stock worth up to $15,000. Breitbart says the company then announced a restructuring that cost $405 million and laid off 500 people, and that the stock fell 12 percent from July 21 through Aug. 12 and 17 percent by Aug. 31.
The disclosure. Breitbart says Brown later admitted he failed to report the sale on his Senate financial disclosure. His letter to the Secretary of the Senate is dated May 14, 2011, but carries an acceptance stamp of May 14, 2012. Breitbart says Brown has not explained the gap. The STOCK Act, which requires prompt public notice of trades above $1,000, was signed on April 4, 2012.
The trust question. Breitbart says Brown was an active trustee for more than three years and that, under Senate ethics rules, the trust did not count as a blind trust, so he had access to or knowledge of its trades. It also notes that in February 2012 he backed anti-insider-trading legislation, telling CBS News that senators "shouldn't be voting on issues that affect their financial investments."
Note for readers: this is Breitbart's account of a 16-year-old transaction. The piece notes that Breitbart's own Peter Schweizer helped lead the push for the STOCK Act. It does not claim Brown acted on inside information, and it contains no response from Brown. We have not seen the filings.