John McGuire fights back at insider trading jab: ‘I don’t even do trades’

John McGuire, the MAGA Republican who represents the Fifth District in Congress, told a Lynchburg TV station on Thursday that he won’t entertain the idea of scheduling a debate with Democrat Tom Perriello until Perriello apologizes “for accusing me of insider trading,” then claimed: “I don’t even do trades.”

The problem with McGuire claiming that he doesn’t “do trades” being: he does.

“Do trades,” that is.

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Cville Right Now broke the story on McGuire actually doing trades, reporting back on July 13 that McGuire, after voting with the House majority to pass the 21st Century Road to Housing Act “sold off over $1,000 of BlackRock Inc. stock, partially divesting himself from one of the companies the legislation targets three days before the bill became law,” and “also divulged purchasing between $1,001 and $15,000 in Space Explorations Technologies Corp., the company founded by Elon Musk in 2002.”

The latter sale is noteworthy because McGuire is a member of House subcommittees on cybersecurity and information technology.

This information comes from a public disclosure form on file with the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives – filed by McGuire, with his signature.

The BlackRock Inc. stock dump was dated July 7; the SpaceX dump was dated June 15.

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Here’s where I’ll add to the reporting done last month by CRN: Mr. “I don’t even do trades” recently dumped more BlackRock stock – in separate trades valued between $1,001 and $15,000 – on July 10 and July 14, per a filing made with the clerk’s office on Aug. 7.

That Aug. 7 filing also includes a notation of a sale of between $1,001 and $15,000 in stock of Applied Materials Inc., a Silicon Valley company – market cap: $366.4 billion – that supplies equipment, services and software for the manufacture of semiconductor chips for electronics, flat panel displays for computers, smartphones, televisions, and solar products.

One other from the Aug. 7 filing: the sale of between $1,001 and $15,000 of stock in Palo Alto Networks Inc., another Silicon Valley company – market cap: $302.9 billion – that focuses on cybersecurity, with its core product being a platform that includes advanced firewalls and cloud-based offerings that extend those firewalls to cover other aspects of security.

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John McGuire does trades, and it seems fair for Tom Perriello to make the charge that the trades certainly have the look and feel of insider trading, given the subcommittees that McGuire serves on, and what we can assume he would have access to, in terms of information about activities in the cybersecurity and IT sectors, through that service.

“If he has an explanation for making money off stock trades related to his own committee work, then he should have no trouble explaining that in a debate,” Perriello said, in a statement in a release from his campaign on Friday.

ABC13 in Lynchburg got McGuire to weigh in on this at an event on Thursday; this was where he offered that his “first caveat” to accepting a debate invite is Perriello going on “national TV” to apologize for the insider trading jab.

The reporter pushed back with a follow-up; McGuire stood firm.

“Like I said, if he wants to publicly apologize for telling the people of the Fifth that I did insider trading, we’ll have that discussion,” McGuire said.

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He actually talks like that, by the way.

“I did insider trading.”

“I don’t even do trades.”

People of the Fifth: you can’t do better than having that represent you in Congress?