Rep. Chris Collins Expected To Plead Guilty To Insider Trading Tuesday

The Republican con­gress­man resigned Monday. He pre­vi­ous­ly dis­missed the charges as “mer­it­less” and the result of a “witch hunt.”

Rep. Chris Collins (R‑N.Y.) is expect­ed to plead guilty Tuesday to felony charges relat­ed to insid­er trad­ing, two years after dis­miss­ing the alle­ga­tions as a “witch hunt.”
Collins resigned Tuesday amid reports of his guilty plea, the Associated Press report­ed.

Collins, his son Cameron, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron’s fiancée, had all ini­tial­ly plead­ed not guilty after the FBI arrest­ed them in August 2018. 

Federal court records show Collins is sched­uled to appear for a “change of plea hear­ing” at 3:00 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. Cameron and Zarsky are sched­uled to appear for sim­i­lar hear­ings Thursday.

All three face charges of secu­ri­ties fraud, wire fraud and mak­ing false state­ments. All three are expect­ed to change their pleas, though it’s unclear which exact charges they will plead guilty to. 

Collins served on the board of a small Australian biotech com­pa­ny called Innate Immunotherapeutics. He alleged­ly told his son and Zarsky about the unpub­li­cized tri­al fail­ure of a drug the com­pa­ny had devel­oped, which would lat­er cause stock prices to plum­met 92 percent.

Cameron and Zarsky both unloaded their shares before the stock tanked, there­by avoid­ing $768,000 in loss­es, accord­ing to an indict­ment. 

At the time of his arrest, Collins told reporters the charges were “mer­it­less” and that he would “mount a vig­or­ous defense in court to clear my name.”

The charges incensed President Donald Trump, who attacked then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for allow­ing the indict­ments to move for­ward, brazen­ly sug­gest­ing the Justice Department should pri­or­i­tize par­ty affil­i­a­tion over criminality.

Collins owned 37.9 mil­lion shares, worth just over $20 mil­lion, in the com­pa­ny before things went south.

The three-term con­gress­man was nar­row­ly reelect­ed in 2018 by less than one per­cent­age point. Lawmakers con­vict­ed of felonies aren’t barred from hold­ing their seats, but they aren’t allowed to vote.

Editors note: This is your Republican par­ty in which a can­di­date under Federal indict­ment can still be elect­ed in a dis­trict heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed with Republicans.
These are the kinds of immoral peo­ple who call them­selves Republicans. They fraud­u­lent­ly wrap them­selves in the American Flag and pre­tend to be patri­ots.
They are quick to con­demn any and every­one for not mea­sur­ing up to their hyp­o­crit­i­cal stan­dards. They preach reli­gion but are the most hate­ful of peo­ple.
Amoral, immoral, and fraud­u­lent liars.