Public documents now indicate that Nancy Pelosi’s spouse sold over $500,000 in Visa stock less than three months prior to the credit card company being charged with federal antitrust violations.
The Justice Department’s antitrust unit conducted a years-long review, which culminated in a lawsuit against Visa on Tuesday, alleging that the company has unlawfully monopolized the debit card market.
According to court documents, Visa purportedly exploited its dominant market position to impose penalties on merchants and customers who employed alternative payment processors.
Visa is also accused by antitrust authorities of coercing financial technology firms to collaborate with it by threatening to impose penalties on those who refuse.
In the interim, Christopher Josephs, the tech entrepreneur who operates the “Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker” on X, shared a screenshot of a congressional filing on July 3.
The filing indicated that Paul Pelosi, the husband of the former House speaker, had sold 2,000 shares of Visa, valued at between $500,000 and $1 million.
There was no public indication that an antitrust lawsuit against the company was imminent at the time Paul Pelosi sold Visa stock.
However, critics have asserted that Nancy Pelosi’s position in Washington may provide her with access to non-public information that is pertinent to the markets.
If she did in fact possess insider information, that would constitute the crime of insider trading, which frequently results in jail time for those convicted.
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