Many Republicans in Congress have no problem giving Donald Trump their political support or spending donor money at his hotels, golf clubs and resorts. But when it comes to using their own funds to back his latest venture, Trump Media & Technology Group, barely any of them want anything to do with it.
Just two lawmakers have reported buying stock in Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company that merged with Trump’s firm last month: Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who—despite being known as one of Trump’s fiercest backers in Congress—appears to have already discarded her shares.
The data comes from three websites that monitor and track lawmakers’ stock trades: Capitol Trades, Trend Spider and Quiver Quantitative. Forbes verified the holdings by reviewing the underlying disclosures the lawmakers submitted to the House Clerk. (Members of Congress have 45 days to report their stock purchases. So if any of them had bought the post-merger company, trading under the ticker symbol DJT, they would not have needed to report it yet.)
On Oct. 22, 2021, two days after Trump Media and Digital World announced their merger plans, Greene purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of shares in Digital World in an account jointly held with her then-husband, according to a disclosure. (Lawmakers only have to report their stock transactions in broad ranges; they are not required to disclose the number of shares involved or the price.) Digital World’s price swung wildly that day, from a low of $67.96 to a high of $175, meaning Greene likely purchased anywhere from 85 to 735 shares. Either way, by the end of 2021, the value of her holdings had dropped to just $1,000 to $15,000.
Greene’s shares disappeared altogether a year later. She did not report any Digital World stock on her 2022 disclosure in the assets section of the report, nor did she report having sold them in the transactions section either. She also did not report selling the shares in any disclosures required for individual transactions.
A spokesperson for Greene declined to explain what became of her stock in Digital World. “Her financials have been reported properly, and we aren’t going to go any further than that,” said Nick Dyer.
There are at least a couple possible explanations.
Lawmakers only have to report owning, buying or selling assets that are worth more than $1,000. So if Greene’s shares in Digital World, which she purchased for $15,000 to $50,000 plummeted to less than $1,000, she would not have needed to report owning or selling them. That situation seems unlikely though. Digital World’s lowest price in 2022 was $14.80 and the stock finished the year trading at $15. Even if Greene had bought her stock at the highest price they were trading at on the day of her purchase, her stake in the company should not have dipped below $1,000 in 2022, meaning any ownership or public sale of the stock would have been above the reporting threshold.
There is at least one other alternative though: according to the House Ethics Manual, “transactions solely between the reporting individual and his or her spouse or dependent children need not be disclosed.” Greene and her husband, Perry Greene, divorced in 2022. According to the decree, “all issues of property and liability division were fully settled” on Dec. 13, a week before their divorce was made final. It’s possible the Digital World shares were transferred to an account for Perry Greene or the couple’s children. Without stating this is what happened to her Digital World stock, the congresswoman acknowledged this possibility with a comment towards the end of her 2022 disclosure: “In connection with a change in marital status, certain assets previously reported as being held by Congresswoman Greene are no longer reportable as assets. These transfers in ownership were not effectuated by means of reportable transactions.” Perry Greene did not respond to an inquiry.
Buchson, the other member of Congress who has reported buying shares in Digital World made a more straightforward transaction than Greene’s. He purchased $1,000 to $15,000 worth of the company in his Roth IRA on Oct. 25, 2021, four days after the venture was announced. Unlike Greene, he appears to still own the shares. In fact, Digital World was the only individual stock in Bucshon’s portfolio at the end of 2022 and it was the first stock transaction he reported making since he sold his stake in Apple in 2013.
A spokesperson for Bucshon, who is not completely in the Trump wing of the GOP, having acknowledged that Trump incited the Jan. 6 riot, did not respond to a request for comment.
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