(TheLibertyRevolution.com)- A Democratic senator has been saying he wants to prevent lawmakers from being able to exploit their positions in Washington for personal economic gain.
But, that’s apparently exactly what he’s doing.
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly has invested $250,000 in Boom Technology, a non-public company in the aerospace industry, according to the latest financial disclosure he filed. That company was also just awarded a lucrative contract from the Pentagon — leading to obvious concerns about conflict of interest, and also flying in the face of what he’s been saying publicly.
Kelly, who was once an astronaut, served on the company’s board of advisers as recently as 2019. At one point, he held $50,000 in stock options with the company, but those expired back in February.
In January of this year, though, Boom Technology said they had developed a strategic partnership with the U.S. Air Force that could be worth as much as $60 million. The partnership is for three years and is a “substantial increase” on the contract the Air Force had with Boom Technology since before Kelly became a member of the Senate.
The reason why Kelly’s investment with Boom Technology is a potential conflict of interest is because he serves on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. That committee is responsible for overseeing the budget for the Pentagon.
In addition, he serves on the Airland Subcommittee, a panel that has oversight on the research budget for the Air Force.
At the same time, Kelly has been a part of various bills that would prohibit Congress members from profiting personally from the positions they hold. Some of the bills he’s helped introduce would ban lawmakers from receiving any contributions to their campaigns from a corporate Political Action Committee, and another that would ban all lawmakers from trading any stocks.
In this past, Kelly has repeatedly said that he wanted to “root out corruption and increase transparency in Washington.”
Yet, he seems to be doing the exact opposite behind closed doors that he’s fighting for in the public eye.
Kelly exercised the stock options he had with Boom Technology back in April 2021. Then, in July of that year, he placed all his assets in a blind trust to preserve “transparency and accountability.” He’s proposed that other Congress members be required to do the same thing.
Many other politicians have criticized that proposal, though, including some members of his own party. For example, Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren of California said:
“You know what you put in, so it’s not really blind.”
The Washington Free Beacon asked Kelly’s office to provide a comment on his potential conflict of interest. His office said that congressional committees and senators don’t award any contracts to companies.
That being said, the company does indeed lobby Senate members on noise pollution as well as defense appropriations.
Kelly has also been instrumental in past successes Boom Technology has achieved. The company’s current CEO, Blake Scholl, has said that when Kelly was serving as an adviser, he arranged a meeting between company executives and Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic, who is a friend of Kelly’s.
