But Suozzi’s March 31 sale of up to $50,000 worth of Global Industrial Co. stock is notable for what it’s not: The congressman has never publicly disclosed owning the stock, prompting the question of how a federal lawmaker can sell a security he doesn’t appear to own in the first place.
The answer? Suozzi simply didn’t disclose his Global Industrial Co. stock, which he obtained more than two years ago, because of an apparent loophole in federal law—a loophole recently closed by Congress to address stock situations precisely like Suozzi’s, according to a Fortune review of federal documents and interviews with government officials.
Suozzi’s congressional office told Fortune the congressman has done nothing wrong by not yet reporting his Global Industrial Co. stock ownership, arguing that he followed congressional rules that applied to him when he last filed mandatory personal financial disclosures in 2024.
“Congressman Suozzi has complied completely with the rules of House Ethics,” Suozzi Chief of Staff Matt Fried told Fortune.
Suozzi’s latest stock saga began in June 2023.
“You are required to disclose for yourself, your spouse, or dependent children your participation in a restricted stock plan if the value of stock was more than $1,000 at the end of the reporting period or earned more than $200 in income during the reporting period,” the House guidance reads. “Provide the name of the unvested stock (vested stock should be disclosed on a separate line item), value, type of income and amount.”
Tom Rust, chief counsel for the House Committee on Ethics, declined to comment.
“These disclosure requirements are important because they’re the only sort of ethical obligation members of Congress have been willing to impose on themselves,” said Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. “If they’d finally pass the long-languishing stock trading ban to uphold the bedrock ethical principle of avoiding conflicts of interest, they wouldn’t have to worry about these disclosures.”
When Suozzi sold his Global Industrial Co. stock on March 31, it was trading around $22 per share — down from about $27 a share when he obtained it in June 2023.
It’s the only stock trade Suozzi has reported making this year after reporting making just a handful last year.
“The congressman has made a point of not buying or selling stock since his new term began in January,” Fried said. “This was his only trade. It was done to raise money to pay fees to his financial adviser. This stock was sold because it was the only stock in which he had no capital gains.”
