Powell criticizes Cantor for loophole in STOCK Act.
Democratic challenger Wayne Powell is criticizing Rep. Eric Cantor, R-7th, for his handling of legislation this year to discourage insider trading among members of Congress.
Specifically, Powell charges that Cantor, the House majority leader, advanced a House version of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act with a loophole on spousal disclosure that potentially could benefit Cantor's family.
Cantor's wife, Diana, is a partner in an investment firm, Alternative Investment Management LLC, that deals with hedge funds.
"He yanked that so he can still legally go home and tell his wife all the inside dope on what Congress is about to do and personally profit from that," Powell charged.
In an interview Thursday, Cantor said the loophole was an "inadvertent error" that occurred when his office drafted the House version of a Senate bill — an error that he corrected when it was brought to his attention.
"It was an absolute mistake and we never intended that to happen, which is why it's been changed," he said in an interview in Tampa, Fla., during the Republican National Convention. "We fixed it."
Cantor said the implication that he advanced a bill with a loophole that would have allowed his family and the families of other members to potentially benefit is "preposterous."
But Powell is not backing down.
"For Cantor to say the spousal exemption was an inadvertent error is a total fabrication," Powell said. "How can it not be, when Cantor put it in the House version he himself wrote?"
The exchange is the latest sign of what is becoming a contentious and bare-knuckled fight for the 7th District — a Republican-heavy sector of central Virginia that Cantor has represented since 2001 without a serious general election challenge.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/sep/01/tdmet01-powell-criticizes-cantor-for-loophole-in-s-ar-2169717/
