How A Chris Collins’ Obsession With A Small Australian Biotech Firm Upended His Career
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) announced over the weekend that he would not be seeking reelection. Collins faces insider-trading charges following his involvement with Innate Immunotherapeutics, a tiny biotech firm. The New York Times looks at the actions that landed the three-term congressman in legal trouble.
The New York Times:
A Congressman, A Financial Deal And An Intricate Web Of Conflicts
Representative Christopher Collins once said that the success of an obscure Australian company’s drug would be carved on his tombstone. Instead, its failure has upended his congressional career. The three-term congressman’s infectious enthusiasm for Innate Immunotherapeutics, the tiny biotech firm, led to his indictment on Wednesday, when he and several other investors were accused of insider trading. Prosecutors said that he tipped off his son to the poor results of the company’s clinical drug trial for a notoriously intractable form of multiple sclerosis before they were public, allowing the son and others to dump their stock and save hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Thomas and Kaplan, 8/11)
The New York Times:
Representative Chris Collins Suspends Bid For Re-Election After Insider Trading Charges
Days after federal prosecutors charged him with insider trading, Representative Chris Collins announced on Saturday that he was abandoning his re-election bid amid worries that his legal troubles could make vulnerable his otherwise solidly Republican district in western New York. How exactly the suspension of Mr. Collins’s campaign would play out was not immediately clear, as the process to get off the ballot can be onerous in New York, and Mr. Collins did not say how he would remove himself. (Goldmacher, 8/11)
