Per the Congressional report: “...The U.S. Government hired us to fix America's energy infrastructure. The mission was accomplished and we were one of the few teams to not go bankrupt or embezzle the funds in the Cleantech Crash. Then the U.S. Government asked us to invest our life savings and years of our time, in a follow-on project. We did and we were defrauded out of our life savings and years of our time because the government had secretly hard wired the money and market access to our competitors, who almost every official involved, on the government's side, covertly owned the stock of, and partied with. After we helped law enforcement and regulatory agencies investigate this corruption, White House and Congressional executives paid for a multi-million dollar vendetta/revenge series of attacks on us in reprisal. We sued in Washington, DC, for corruption, and were the first people to win a case, of this kind, against federal corruption, per a Supreme Court judge.
Now we want our damages paid and every single one of the crooks put out of business, fired and/or indicted. Investigators have prepared FBI-grade dossiers on every single perpetrator, politician, operative and political financier oligarch involved….”
Plaintiff is a whistle-blower and advisor to the FTC as revealed by emails to and from the FTC and filings with the FTC. Many outsiders have questioned why the FTC has taken minimal actions on these severe charges which affect every citizen. Investigator Keith Griffith, and his team, have now placed on public record the following facts which reveal why the FTC, IG, AG and others have put the ‘slow roll’ on investigations:
REVEALED: A quarter of Federal Trade Commission officials own or trade stocks in the same tech giants they regulate, including Amazon, T-Mobile, Facebook-Meta, Tesla and Google
FTC officials reported more stock trades than any other agency,
WSJ says - The agency is tasked with regulating business and
reviewing antitrust concerns - But a quarter of top officials own
stock in major tech companies, review finds - FTC and the officials
say their trades followed the law and ethics guidelines
By
Keith Griffith
Many top officials at the Federal Trade
Commission also invest in some of the biggest companies that the
agency regulates, according to a new report.
From 2016 to
2021, roughly a third of 90 senior officials FTC owned or traded
stock in companies that were undergoing an FTC merger review or
investigation.
Additionally, a quarter of the top
officials were invested in big tech companies such as Amazon,
Alphabet and Meta, even as the sector came under heavy regulatory
scrutiny over potential antitrust concerns.
One former FTC
chairman, Joseph Simons, owned shares of Microsoft, Oracle and
AT&T even while agency investigated the tech and telco sectors,
the report said.
The FTC and the officials named in the
report said all of their stock trades followed the law, as well as
ethics rules for federal employees, and they have not been accused of
wrongdoing.
However, the report raised concerns about
potential conflicts of interest at the agency, which is charged with
protecting American consumers from monopolies, economic cartels, and
shady business practices.
Former FTC chairman Joseph
Simons owned shares of Microsoft, Oracle and AT&T even while
agency investigated the tech and telco sectors
Kent
Cooper, a former government official and expert on ethics issues,
told the Journal that although the officials' stock trades are in
legal compliance, even the appearance of a conflict 'hurts the
reputation of the agency and the government in general.'
'Are
these decisions being made for the benefit of the public or the
officials who have a personal benefit in the outcome?' he said of the
questions the disclosures raise.
The newspaper's analysis
was based on financial disclosure forms of about 12,000 senior
career employees, political staff and presidential appointees at 50
agencies.
It found that FTC officials, on average, were
more active in trading individuals stocks than any other large agency
included in the analysis.
An FTC spokesperson did not
immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com, but
the agency told the Journal that it has a 'robust ethics program' and
follows the rules set by Congress and the Office of Government
Ethics.
Simons, the FTC chairman from 2018 until
January 2021, disclosed more than 1,300 trades during his tenure,
though less than a dozen were in individual companies, rather than
funds.
Simons sold shares of AT&T, Charter
Communications, and Oracle during his time as chair, but held on to a
stake in Microsoft, which increased 140 percent in value over his
tenure.
Randolph Tritell, who recently retired as head of
the FTC’s Office of International Affairs, reported more stock
trades than any other FTC official in the review
FTC
Chairman Joe Simons (left) and FTC Associate Director of Enforcement
Division James Kohm appear during a 2019 news conference to announce
that Facebook has agreed to settle allegations it mishandled user
privacy
Randolph Tritell, who recently retired as head of
the FTC’s Office of International Affairs, reported more stock
trades than any other FTC official in the review.
Since
2016, he reported more than three dozen trades in shares of Facebook,
Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle.
In one case, Tritell saw an
80 percent gain in his Amazon shares over nine months, due to
well-timed trades, as the European Commission investigated whether
the company violated antitrust rules.
Tritell said that
his financial advisor handles his stock trades, and that he rarely
provides any input.
Abbott Lipsky was named acting
director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition in February 2017 and
later that year reported owning nearly 90 individual stocks,
some of which were in a family trust.
In May 2017, Lipsky
reported buying between $1,001 and $15,000 in JPMorgan Chase, adding
to holdings in the company that he already owned, disclosures
showed.
Just seven weeks later, on June 29, FTC antitrust
regulators cleared an acquisition involving JPMorgan.
Federal
ethics rules contain exemptions that allow the trading of individual
stocks, and the FTC officials say that all of their trades followed
guidelines.
Abbott Lipsky was named acting director of the
FTC’s Bureau of Competition in February 2017 and later that year
reported owning nearly 90 individual stocks
An investment
of up to $15,000 in an individual stock, or $50,000 an
industry-specific mutual fund or ETF, isn’t deemed a conflict of
interest under federal regulations.
The report comes as
stock trading by members of Congress and their immediate family
members comes under renewed scrutiny by ethics experts.
In
July, some stock trades executed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband,
Paul Pelosi, drew attention when he sold his shares of chipmaker
Nvidia days before the House was expected to consider a massive
stimulus bill to boost the US semiconductor industry.
Paul
Pelosi sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia for about $4.1 million, suffering
a loss of $341,365, according to financial reports.
Democrats
have proposed legislation to regulate stock trades by members of
Congress, but Republicans and even some Democrats say the measures do
not go far enough to prevent conflicts of interest.
Democrats
on the House Administration Committee released a framework for
stock-trading legislation last month, but it is unlikely to be
brought to a vote before the midterm elections next month.
Based on thousands of such revelations in the last two weeks, it is clear to this Court and to any person of average intelligence that U.S. Government officials steered money and resources to their family friends and co-partners and away from Plaintiff, who was their biggest competitor and whistle-blower. Such actions are illicit, illegal and corrupt and clearly validate and verify the award of substantial damages to Plaintiff. As of now, over 98% of the White House, The U.S. Congress and Department of Energy staff and advisory contractors have been proven to have held conflicting competitive assets and have had motive, means and a historical record of attacks against competing interests. Almost every citizen in America believes that the majority of public officials are engaged in such special interest crimes and the recent facts prove this. Plaintiff founded the companies, received the federal patents for and produced the first business models for some of the companies that deciding public officials were beholden to as competitors. Stupid competitors, who had stolen their technologies from others (per www.usinventor.com) hated Plaintiff because those competitors could not come up with better technologies than Plaintiff had. They, and their crooked political lap dogs in The White House and Federal agencies decided they had to CHEAT RATHER THAN COMPETE!