As Rep. Julia Letlow runs for Senate, late disclosure of 210 stock trades draws scrutiny

U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who President Donald Trump has endorsed to be Louisiana’s next senator, did not follow a federal law that required her to report 210 individual stock trades over the past two years, according to a document she filed with Congress last month.

In 100 of those trades, Letlow reported the transactions more than a year late, according to the stock trading report – known as the Periodic Transaction Report – that she filed on Jan. 13, 2026.

In all, the trades involved stocks worth anywhere from $225,000 to $3,185,000. Members of Congress provide a range of the value for each trade.

A super PAC supporting U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy is broadcasting TV and radio ads attacking Letlow’s failure to report the trades on time.

Under a 2012 law passed by Congress known as the STOCK Act, Letlow and all members of Congress have to report individual stock trades within 45 days of the transaction.

But the report she filed last month shows that she violated federal law by failing to do so in those 210 transactions.

That was a significant number, said Kedric Payne, the senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C.

“The public has to have confidence that the decisions of their elected officials are based on protecting the public interest and not their financial interest,” Payne said. “The only way to do that is have accurate reporting of the members’ financial interests.”

Matt Smith, a spokesperson for Letlow, did not dispute the stock trading violations. But he said Merrill Lynch, her broker, handled the transactions without her input and that she self-reported her failure to report them on time.

“Congresswoman Letlow did not direct, approve, or have prior knowledge of any trades,” Smith said. “They were executed independently by a third-party firm with discretionary authority over a managed account. This was a delayed reporting issue under the STOCK Act and not insider trading.”

Smith said Letlow would not make herself available for an interview. He added that her office would not make available her Merrill Lynch broker and does not have documentation showing that Letlow entrusted her individual stock trading decisions with the firm.

Letlow’s explanation that the fault lies with Merrill Lynch is no excuse, said Brian Baird, who as a Democratic Congressman from Washington state sponsored the original legislation that became the STOCK Act.

“You can’t say ‘I should be entrusted with the authority by voters to decide tax rates and send kids to war’ but not be able to tell your broker that you’re obliged to follow the rules of the Stock Act,” said Baird, who left Congress in 2011. “If you’re a member of Congress, take responsibility.”

Baird noted that the STOCK Act does not absolve members who put the blame on a financial adviser — the onus for timely reporting falls to the members.

Baird added that Republicans watered down the bill to limit the fine for a violation to only $200 but said public exposure of members who fail to report trades serves as a deterrent.

Letlow, a Republican who lives in Baton Rouge, represents the 5th Congressional District, which includes East Baton Rouge and Livingston parishes, the Florida parishes and the parishes extending up the Mississippi River to the Arkansas border. She was first elected to the position in 2021, after her husband Luke won the seat and died from COVID. She was reelected in 2022 and 2024.

Letlow is giving up her congressional seat now to challenge Cassidy in the May 16 Republican primary. State Treasurer John Fleming is also competing in the GOP primary.

Three little-known Democrats are running in the Democratic Party primary on May 16.

Letlow’s failure to file the stock trades on time was first reported by NOTUS, a Washington, D.C. website that covers politics.

Cassidy’s reports do not show that he has traded stocks since 2012.

But they do show that his wife, Laura, has bought and sold stocks and has met the 45-day window in every instance but one. In that case, she made 15 trades on Dec. 7, 2018, but he didn’t report them until Aug. 7, 2019.

Cassidy’s campaign noted it was an isolated incident.

Fleming served in the House from 2009-17. He did not report buying or selling stocks.

Fleming declined to comment on Letlow’s stock trades but noted he voted for the 2012 STOCK Act.

What Letlow traded

In Letlow’s Jan. 13 Periodic Transaction Report, she reported that she made her first trade on May 1, 2024, and was particularly active over a three-day period beginning on Oct. 23 that year. She continued to make trades in 2024 and throughout 2025.

Among the stocks she bought or sold were Alcoa, Abbott Laboratories, Apple, Amazon, AT&T, JP Morgan, CVS, Philip Morris and Warner Brothers.

Letlow has access to a wide range of information as a member of the House. She sits on two House committees: Appropriations and Education & the Workforce.

In some cases, Letlow traded stocks in companies within two or three days of her congressional committees holding hearings on topics that touched upon business activities involving those companies.

For example, on July 23, 2025, the House Appropriations Committee debated and approved budgets for national security, the State Department and international lending and finance institutions. Letlow joined other Republicans in opposing amendments offered by Democrats. One sought to increase funding for the United Nations Population Fund, while another sought to prohibit the State Department from hosting events at property owned by Trump.

Within two days, Letlow traded 16 stocks – including Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Taiwan Semiconductor and Visa – that were worth anywhere from $16,016 to $240,000.

Smith reiterated that Letlow did not personally authorize the trades.

Smith said Letlow began the process of reporting the individual stock trades by hiring the Washington law firm of Dickinson Wright last year to review them. That led her to self-report her violations on Oct. 25 to the House Committee on Ethics, Smith said.

On Feb. 3, the committee’s director of financial disclosure sent a letter to Letlow saying the committee had agreed to her request to waive the $200 late filing penalty.

Smith added that Letlow has instituted strong controls to ensure that Merrill Lynch informs her of individual stock trades to timely report them.

Should members of Congress trade stocks?

Public pressure has been building on Congress to address concerns that lawmakers are buying and selling stocks armed with inside information they obtain while carrying out their work in Washington.

Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from the Shreveport suburb of Benton, is supporting a bill that is advancing in the House. It would prohibit legislators from buying individual stocks. But they could continue to own existing stocks and sell them with 7 to 14 days of notice.

Smith said Letlow supports the measure, known as the Stock Insider Trading Act.

So does Cassidy, according to his campaign.

Many Democrats and some Republicans say the measure doesn’t go far enough and support a competing measure that would prohibit the trading of stocks in most instances.

Payne said that is the best approach.

He called the Stock Insider Trading Act a “bad bill,” saying, “A ban is needed to stop members from trading stock in individual companies. That’s the only way to eliminate the perception that conflicts of interest with these stock trades.”

Trades become a campaign issue

Letlow’s failure to report the individual stock transactions has already become an issue in the Senate campaign. A pro-Cassidy super PAC, the Louisiana Freedom Fund, cited the NOTUS article to attack her in a TV and radio ad campaign.

In a statement, Letlow put the blame on Cassidy for the ad, even though super PACs by law cannot coordinate their activities with candidate campaigns.

“Bill Cassidy knows he can’t defend his record, so he’s resorting to desperate, false attacks to distract from what Louisiana voters haven’t forgotten: he voted to impeach President Trump, and he’s been out of step with our party ever since," Letlow said.

For his part, Cassidy said in a statement: “Elected officials have access to information the public doesn't. They shouldn't be allowed to cash in on it by trading stocks with that information.”

Nick Albares, a Democrat running for Senate, said he favors the complete prohibition.

“Insider trading is wrong, it is illegal and as a U.S. senator, I would work to pass legislation to ban stock trading by members of Congress,” he said in a statement.