Rep. Chris Collins, Trump's first congressional endorser, arrested by FBI
President Trump's first friend in Congress is the latest to fall to the FBI.
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) was arrested Wednesday on charges of securities fraud and making false statements to the FBI. Collins, who was the first member of Congress to publicly endorse Trump, surrendered to the FBI on Wednesday, reports NBC News.
Collins, still a consistent spokesman for the president, is accused of insider trading along with his son Cameron Collins and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron's fiancée. The House Ethics Committee has been reviewing Collins' investments with Innate Immunotherapeutics since May 2017, The Buffalo News reports.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Collins is one of the Australian biotech company's largest shareholders, and served on the board. During that time, prosecutors allege, he passed along private information that allowed his son and Zarsky to make "timely trades" that saved them more than $768,000 in losses.
Legal representatives for Collins said that the indictment doesn't specifically allege that Collins himself traded Innate stock. "We are confident he will be completely vindicated and exonerated," they told NBC News.
Despite the ongoing investigation, Collins was heavily favored to win re-election this November. Now, he's expected to appear in court Wednesday.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
‘The worry is far from fanciful’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
How are Americans bracing for the end of SNAP?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION Millions depend on supplemental federal food funds that are set to expire this month, as the government shutdown begins to be acutely felt
-
Book review: ‘Joyride: A Memoir’Feature A journalist’s story of how she chased and accomplished her dreams
-
Warner Bros. explores sale amid Paramount bidsSpeed Read The media giant, home to HBO and DC Studios, has received interest from multiple buying parties
-
Gold tops $4K per ounce, signaling financial uneaseSpeed Read Investors are worried about President Donald Trump’s trade war
-
Electronic Arts to go private in record $55B dealspeed read The video game giant is behind ‘The Sims’ and ‘Madden NFL’
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
