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Congressman Chris Collins, NY (R) and early Trump supporter, arrested for insider trading (1 Viewer)

This guy must be a huge idiot. Calling his son 5 times from the White House lawn during a Congressional picnic and telling him to dump a stock? 

 
Watching the FBI presentation on this now. Innocent until proven guilty and all that but if there was a betting market for things like this I know which way I'd go.

Assuming he is convicted and not given a pardon what kind of sentence is he likely to get?

 
House Speaker Ryan says insider trading allegations against Representative Chris Collins ‘demand a prompt and thorough’ ethics committee investigation, says Collins will no longer serve on House Energy and Commerce Committee until insider trading matter is settled

- Reuters

 
This has been bandied about for awhile but I'm amazed something actually came of it.  I won't be convinced until he's convicted, and I'm sure it'll just be a slap on the wrist anyway.

He's a partisan hack and has always seemed like he's more about himself than his constituents.  

Funny thing is, he's a career businessman who has only relatively recently had a successful foray into politics, so he's not the establishment swamp but rather more like Trump himself instead of a career politician.

At the end of the day, his district is gerrymandered such that it is deeply, deeply red, and even if something were to happen to cause him to lose his seat in Congress, it'll still be a GOP seat.

 
Free Republic is already speculating that this is all part of the Deep State effort to destroy Trump. Wonder what Q thinks...

 
Local right-wing radio (note that this is Collins' territory) insinuating that the FBI is untrustworthy and this is merely a witch hunt by leftists who don't like Trump.  

 
Wow, this may be a much bigger scandal. Apparently there were many Republican Congressmen who Collins may have informed about this stock and who made money off of it. If that’s true at all, look out. 

 
joffer said:
where you seeing that?
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Some journalist interviewed on MSNBC as I was driving to work. (I listen to it on the radio.) Said that a few months back Collins was overheard bragging about how he made several Congressmen millionaires. Also said there were Republican Congressmen from Oklahoma and Texas who were buddies of Collins who owned this stock and sold it at the same time Collins’ son did, before it fell. 

He didn’t name any names. That’s all I got. 

 
timschochet said:
Some journalist interviewed on MSNBC as I was driving to work. (I listen to it on the radio.) Said that a few months back Collins was overheard bragging about how he made several Congressmen millionaires. Also said there were Republican Congressmen from Oklahoma and Texas who were buddies of Collins who owned this stock and sold it at the same time Collins’ son did, before it fell. 

He didn’t name any names. That’s all I got. 
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Per twitter - https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/1027185560157384704

"Notably, Collins got six of his colleagues: Former HHS Secretary Tom Price and Reps. John Culberson, Mike Conaway, Doug Lamborn, Markwayne Mullin and Billy Long, to invest in the company at issue."

These names are also in a DailyKos article - https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/8/1786745/-Trump-lackey-Rep-Chris-Collins-R-NY-arrested-for-securities-fraud

 
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Steve Tasker said:
Per twitter - https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/1027185560157384704

"Notably, Collins got six of his colleagues: Former HHS Secretary Tom Price and Reps. John Culberson, Mike Conaway, Doug Lamborn, Markwayne Mullin and Billy Long, to invest in the company at issue."

These names are also in a DailyKos article - https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/8/1786745/-Trump-lackey-Rep-Chris-Collins-R-NY-arrested-for-securities-fraud
Click to expand...
Interesting. Culberson is in a tight race.

 
This one looks like a slam dunk...not only did they get tipped from an insider with access but they acted on the save themselves money...THEN the pulled the Martha Stewart and thought they’d lie about it to cover it up.  

 
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Steve Tasker said:
Per twitter - https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/1027185560157384704

"Notably, Collins got six of his colleagues: Former HHS Secretary Tom Price and Reps. John Culberson, Mike Conaway, Doug Lamborn, Markwayne Mullin and Billy Long, to invest in the company at issue."

These names are also in a DailyKos article - https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/8/1786745/-Trump-lackey-Rep-Chris-Collins-R-NY-arrested-for-securities-fraud
Click to expand...
There are also 6 unindicted coconspirators.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
There are also 6 unindicted coconspirators.
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Seems like the unofficial general consensus is that these are people related to Collins, his son Cameron, and Cameron's future father-in-law Steven Zarsky.  Speculation is that the 6 are (1) Lauren Zarsky (Cameron's fiancee), (2) Steven Zarsky's wife, (3-5) Stephen Zarsky's siblings and a friend/financial advisor, and (6) some friend of Cameron.

Page 4 of the indictment talks about how Chris Collins relayed the info to Cameron, who told Steven Zarsky and co-conspirators #1, #2, and #6.  Steven Zarsky then told #3-5.  

Seems unlikely that those co-conspirators are the congressmen, unless Cameron Collins and Steven Zarsky were in direct contact with them.

 
boots11234 said:
Not sure what this has to do with him being a Trump supporter.  That being said if he's convicted 'LOCK HIM UP"!  Sucks that these people go to DC and get rich.  This is not a partisan issue either both sides have pigs that do this.
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He was the very first member of Congress to publically support Trump, he was pretty much an unknown before that and the Trump support and subsequent publicity has raised his star considerably. Also Trump ran on "Draining The Swamp" and this arrest for violating insider trading laws is just another example of corruption by those associated with the President.

 
rude classless thugs said:
He was the very first member of Congress to publically support Trump, he was pretty much an unknown before that and the Trump support and subsequent publicity has raised his star considerably. Also Trump ran on "Draining The Swamp" and this arrest for violating insider trading laws is just another example of corruption by those associated with the President.
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I just don’t agree with the whole guilt by association thing but if Trumps not your guy I can understand the reasoning.    

 
boots11234 said:
I just don’t agree with the whole guilt by association thing but if Trumps not your guy I can understand the reasoning.    
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If he was just a Republican Congressman, even if he was a firm supporter of Trump’s agenda, I wouldn’t have posted that. In fact I probably wouldn’t have started the thread, as corruption is so ubiquitous that I rarely find it interesting enough to comment on. 

What makes this interesting is 

(a) his direct connection to Trump

(b) the possibility that other GOP Congressmen are involved

(c) the effect that the current climate of corruption introduced by Trump will have on the upcoming election. 

 
timschochet said:
If he was just a Republican Congressman, even if he was a firm supporter of Trump’s agenda, I wouldn’t have posted that. In fact I probably wouldn’t have started the thread, as corruption is so ubiquitous that I rarely find it interesting enough to comment on. 

What makes this interesting is 

(a) his direct connection to Trump

(b) the possibility that other GOP Congressmen are involved

(c) the effect that the current climate of corruption introduced by Trump will have on the upcoming election. 
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What’s the direct connection as you see it?  

 
boots11234 said:
What’s the direct connection as you see it?  
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He was the first Congressman to endorse Trump. And he shows up with Trump a LOT.

Since I wrote that, I want to add a 4th item that I find very interesting: he's refusing to either step down or take his name off of the ballot. His district, from what I can understand, is highly red.  But Republican voters aren't really big on such outrageous corruption.  How will they respond here?

 
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timschochet said:
This guy must be a huge idiot. Calling his son 5 times from the White House lawn during a Congressional picnic and telling him to dump a stock? 
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This will also be a part of my crime school.  I'll probably combine it with the Carrier Pigeons, Our Misunderstood Friends, class. 

 
timschochet said:
He was the first Congressman to endorse Trump. And he shows up with Trump a LOT.

Since I wrote that, I want to add a 4th item that I find very interesting: he's refusing to either step down or take his name off of the ballot. His district, from what I can understand, is highly red.  But Republican voters aren't really big on such outrageous corruption.  How will they respond here?
Click to expand...
:lmao:

 
timschochet said:
He was the first Congressman to endorse Trump. And he shows up with Trump a LOT.

Since I wrote that, I want to add a 4th item that I find very interesting: he's refusing to either step down or take his name off of the ballot. His district, from what I can understand, is highly red.  But Republican voters aren't really big on such outrageous corruption.  How will they respond here?
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Vote for him. Innocent until guilty and all that. 

 
I am generally a Republican voter in NY.

The state GOP should put a ton of pressure on him to resign. I'm not sure if Cuomo gets to name a replacement for 5 months, but if so, let him.
The district is very solid red. Run anyone else if there's a way to get them on the ballot. If not work with the local Conservative and Constitution parties to get an acceptable candidate on board.

Blatant abuse of power here.

 
timschochet said:
He was the first Congressman to endorse Trump. And he shows up with Trump a LOT.

Since I wrote that, I want to add a 4th item that I find very interesting: he's refusing to either step down or take his name off of the ballot. His district, from what I can understand, is highly red.  But Republican voters aren't really big on such outrageous corruption.  How will they respond here?
Click to expand...
The district is comprised of wealthy white suburbs of Buffalo, wealthy white suburbs of Rochester, and a giant swath of mostly rural farm country in the middle.  Trump plays well here, and Collins struck political gold by being the first sitting member of Congress to endorse him.  I strongly suspect that he will win re-election without really too much of a concern, especially if Trump stumps for him at all.

Collins is massively independently-wealthy and has a very significant fundraising advantage over his main opponent ($1.3 million vs. $80k at last check, before this scandal officially broke).  He seems to have both the ego and the financial means to throw a ton of weight behind a re-election campaign and overwhelm the opposition.

I've seen a lot of talk about how his opponent, Nate McMurray, is a weak candidate.  He's a political newcomer, but I'm not really entirely sure I agree with the "weak" characterization.  McMurray is clearly a rising star in the state's political arena, and it really didn't surprise me to see him secure the nomination.  He has a lot of positives - relatively young (43 compared to Collins' 68), progressive agenda, positive demeanor, deep Western New York ties.  But he's raw, politically.  He's the town supervisor of my hometown, which isn't even in the NY 27 district...it's in NY 26.  I don't know if voters care about that, but they might.  He did manage to flip the town government from red to blue, though.  His major political achievements have been, literally, turning an underutilized parkway into a bike path against local opposition and somehow securing a bunch of state funding to build a state-of-the-art Niagara Falls visitor center that no one goes to.

It'll be interesting to see how he stands up to the increased scrutiny over the next few months.  Personality-wise, I think he'll do fine.  He's a good speaker, energetic, doesn't seem to get fazed easily.  I think he has a very bright political future, at least at the state level.  But we'll see how he handles the next few months.

 
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Thanks Steve Tasker. Very interesting stuff. I do know that within hours of Collins being arrested, McMurray’s offices were deluged with new cash and volunteers. And now reports are that the DNC is paying attention to this race. 

 
Steve Tasker said:
The district is comprised of wealthy suburbs of Buffalo, wealthy suburbs of Rochester, and a giant swath of mostly rural farm country in the middle.  Trump plays well here, and Collins struck political gold by being the first sitting member of Congress to endorse him.  I strongly suspect that he will win re-election without really too much of a concern, especially if Trump stumps for him at all.

Collins is massively independently-wealthy and has a very significant fundraising advantage over his main opponent ($1.3 million vs. $80k at last check, before this scandal officially broke).  He seems to have both the ego and the financial means to throw a ton of weight behind a re-election campaign and overwhelm the opposition.

I've seen a lot of talk about how his opponent, Nate McMurray, is a weak candidate.  I'm not really entirely sure I agree with that.  McMurray is clearly a rising star in the state's political arena, and it really didn't surprise me to see him secure the nomination.  He has a lot of positives - relatively young (43 compared to Collins' 68), progressive agenda, positive demeanor, deep Western New York ties.  But he's raw, politically.  He's the town supervisor of my hometown, which isn't even in the NY 27 district...it's in NY 26.  I don't know if voters care about that, but they might.  He did manage to flip the town government from red to blue, though.  His major political achievements have been, literally, turning an underutilized parkway into a bike path against local opposition and somehow securing a bunch of state funding to build a state-of-the-art Niagara Falls visitor center that no one goes to.

It'll be interesting to see how he stands up to the increased scrutiny over the next few months.  Personality-wise, I think he'll do fine.  He's a good speaker, energetic, doesn't seem to get fazed easily.  I think he has a very bright political future, at least at the state level.  But we'll see how he handles the next few months.
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I grew up in what is now the 24th, used to be 25th.

Our current Rep, fairly big 2A guy had a gun stolen from his truck that was used to kill two people. He also introduced the Securing our Children Act.

 
timschochet said:
Thanks Steve Tasker. Very interesting stuff. I do know that within hours of Collins being arrested, McMurray’s offices were deluged with new cash and volunteers. And now reports are that the DNC is paying attention to this race. 
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I think he fits the mold of your standard young progressive politician.  He's the kind of guy who'd do well in a different setting and he'd clean up in NY 26 if Brian Higgins wasn't in the picture.

I just don't know how he fits in NY 27.  His progressive politics will turn off your wealthy white conservative voters, and he's got no real clout with rural/farm types.  Bernie was able to capture some of the rural progressive vote and maybe McMurray can tap into that a bit, but I don't know if there's enough of them to really swing things.  The sad fact of the matter is that Trump is still extremely popular in this part of the country, and Collins has the Trump stamp of approval.  I mean literally, within an hour of Collins' indictment, WBEN (local conservative talk radio with a wide reach) was calling the indictment an anti-Trump witch hunt by "leftists".  This is the kind of thing you scoff at when you look at other countries and say "this guy is literally under investigation for <x>, why do they keep voting for him?"  Yet here we are.

I'd love to see the seat flip, and I know Nate Silver says scandals like this change 10-12 percentage points, so maybe the analytics are in McMurray's favor....I don't see it though.  

 
Upstate NY is very red.  The politics of it a much closer to the south then anything like the rest of NY that the rest of the country thinks about.

 
Redwes25 said:
Upstate NY is very red.  The politics of it a much closer to the south then anything like the rest of NY that the rest of the country thinks about.
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West of Rochester (or perhaps west of Syracuse) is pure Rust Belt country.  I've always said that if you were to split downstate and upstate into 2 separate states, upstate would be a swing state just like PA, OH, MI.  Culturally and politically, Buffalo (and perhaps Rochester as well though I've never lived there so I can't say) is a pure Rust Belt city with strong cultural ties to southern Ontario, and has far, far more in common with places like Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Catharines (ON), etc. than it does with NYC.  I would imagine most Buffalonians feel a much closer cultural tie to Toronto than NYC.  I think that gets lost when you think of NY as one entity, because NYC dominates so much.

I mean just look at this 2016 electoral map by county.  Downstate is deep blue, the Hudson Valley is mostly blue up through Albany.  West of Albany, you've got only the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Ithaca blue.  

 
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Steve Tasker said:
West of Rochester (or perhaps west of Syracuse) is pure Rust Belt country.  I've always said that if you were to split downstate and upstate into 2 separate states, upstate would be a swing state just like PA, OH, MI.  Culturally and politically, Buffalo (and perhaps Rochester as well though I've never lived there so I can't say) is a pure Rust Belt city with strong cultural ties to southern Ontario, and has far, far more in common with places like Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Catharines (ON), etc. than it does with NYC.

I mean just look at this 2016 electoral map by county.  Downstate is deep blue, the Hudson Valley is mostly blue up through Albany.  West of Albany, you've got only the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Ithaca blue.  
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Never noticed how close the results in Broome County were, which encapsulates Binghamton. Trump won there, and less than 1,000 votes separated Trump & Clinton. Gary Johnson got 3,000 votes and Jill Stein got 1,000 votes. 

I checked there because Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Ithaca are home to SUNY Buffalo, RIT, Syracuse U and Cornell & Ithaca colleges, respectively. So I was curious about Binghamton as that would pretty much round out the major university hubs in the state. Not counting Stony Brook, because of the Hamptons offset, and because Suffolk county is red for a host of other reasons.

 
Redwes25 said:
Upstate NY is very red.  The politics of it a much closer to the south then anything like the rest of NY that the rest of the country thinks about.
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Similar to Portland and Oregon.

 
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