Back In Action, Tom Kean Jr. Faces A New Source Of Scrutiny: His Stocks

During his four-month medical absence from Congress this spring, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. gave few indications of where he was or what he was doing, but there was one action he was still regularly taking: signing off on his stock transaction reports.

The New Jersey Republican — who revealed in June that he had been hospitalized for depression — submitted four periodic transaction reports over the course of his absence, as he was required to do by law. Those reports are now becoming a political issue in Kean’s competitive reelection bid, one that Democrats are trying to use to highlight Kean’s extended disappearance without making light of the serious mental health issue that caused it.

Kean told POLITICO in a phone interview that he has no personal involvement in any transactions, having delegated all authority to his financial advisers. He only learns of any decisions made regarding his assets, he said, when he’s presented with transaction reports awaiting his signature; anyone who claims he’s personally making trades or acting on insider intel is “peddling false, debunked information.”

“I don’t involve myself in any investment decision at any point,” Kean said. “That’s my policy from the time that I entered Congress. It is blind to me.”

But his Democratic foe, former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett, is arguing that Kean should still be held accountable for the trades made in his name, especially the ones that took place when he was missing from Congress. Bennett and her husband do not own any individual stocks, she said, having shifted all of their investments into index and mutual funds last year.

“At the end of the day, it’s his signature on the form,” Bennett said. “He can say whatever he wants, but he is responsible for these stock trades that are happening.”

Kean’s stocks have quickly become a core part of Democrats’ messaging in New Jersey’s 7th District, a crucial swing seat: Bennett mentioned them in her very first statement after Kean revealed his depression diagnosis, and Democratic super PACs have aired ads claiming Kean is more interested in his bottom line than his constituents. “He can trade stocks but can’t show up to work?” one shadowy PAC’s ad asked in June.

The attacks, sure to continue through the fall, put Kean in a difficult position. He says that he’s gone above and beyond to remove even the whiff of impropriety — but with voters across the political spectrum saying that they believe politicians are only looking out for themselves, those nuances may not matter.

Stock trading by members of Congress has come under far greater scrutiny in recent years, prompting several thus-far unsuccessful attempts to limit it or ban it outright.

Some members’ stock indiscretions have been investigated and penalized by Congress’s ethics committees, and even members who haven’t been accused of wrongdoing, such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have still drawn unflattering attention thanks to their stock portfolios. In a Pennsylvania swing district that borders Kean’s seat, stock trades have become a campaign issue for Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan.

7th District voters are no strangers to those debates. Four years ago, Kean used the issue to great effect against Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, who had failed to report a number of stock trades and subsequently came under scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee. Malinowski, dubbed “Trading Tom” by Republicans, lost to Kean by a narrow margin after facing millions of dollars’ worth of attack ads on the subject.

Kean's 'blind structure'

Once he became a member-elect, Kean promised to put his stocks into a Qualified Blind Trust, a mechanism that some members of Congress use to completely remove themselves from all decision-making regarding their investments — and from any appearances of a conflict of interest. QBTs are not subject to periodic reports under the STOCK Act, the 2012 law that put new regulations on congressional stock trading.

Kean ran into roadblocks, however, when he tried to prohibit the trust from short-selling American companies or investing in companies with ties to foreign adversaries. His “simple, common-sense limitations,” he said, were rejected by the House Ethics Committee, preventing him from putting his assets into a proper QBT.

Instead, in 2025, he announced the formation of an alternate, unofficial “blind structure” run by independent advisers without his involvement. The workaround allowed him to put his desired restrictions in place, but it also means his advisers still have to file reports on individual stock transactions — and Kean himself still has to sign those reports after the trades are made.

In a June 2025 letter to House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, Kean’s attorney, Steve Roberts, wrote that Kean “does not direct, influence, or participate in any stock and investment trading activity whatsoever.”

“I’ve created a structure that I think is the best structure of any member of Congress that exists right now,” Kean told POLITICO. “Can you imagine if Nancy Pelosi had a structure that was blind to her? People would have a lot more faith in Congress right now.”

But the reports that Kean filed during his medical absence, which were first reported by NOTUS, inevitably drew additional scrutiny. If Kean couldn’t show up to work, his critics asked, how could still sign off on nearly two dozen stock trades?

To be clear, there are no allegations that Kean did anything wrong in filing the reports. Former Rep. Leonard Lance, the only New Jerseyan to serve on the House Ethics Committee this century, said that as far as he can tell, Kean has “scrupulously” followed the law, which requires him to report all transactions over $1,000, even ones that he had no knowledge of.

“To say that he is making stock trades to benefit himself based upon his position in Congress is nonsense,” said Lance, a Republican who represented the 7th District until he was defeated by Malinowski in 2018.

Lance also referenced something that Kean himself rarely brings up: his family wealth. The Kean family is a storied one in New Jersey history, and Kean’s net worth is at least $7.9 million, according to his 2024 financial disclosure; many of the stocks that were traded in his name this spring are part of the Kean Family Trust.

“I’m speculating, but I doubt that Governor Kean or Congressman Kean, either of them, has ever made a stock trade,” Lance said, referencing Kean’s father, former Gov. Tom Kean Sr. “Why would you? You can have professionals do it!”

Push for a trading ban

Polls show, however, that voters’ distrust of their elected officials runs deep — in one recent poll from the nonpartisan Brennan Center, 85 percent of voters said they believed Congress is very or somewhat corrupt — and even the appearance of a conflict of interest can be damaging.

“Politicians shouldn’t be allowed to [make stock trades] anyways, even if they have the plausible deniability that someone else was doing it for them,” said Issue One’s Ashley Hildebrand, whose organization urges politicians to support stock trading bans and other good-government reforms. “It really does fuel this mistrust in government.”

Kean also serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a powerful and wide-ranging body that has jurisdiction over many of the industries in Kean’s stock portfolio, such as technology and health care. But Kean’s lack of involvement in individual stock decisions theoretically obviates potential conflicts of interest, and while Bennett said that insider trading is a problem in Washington more generally, she did not accuse Kean of doing so.

Like many of his fellow swing-district representatives, Kean has urged Congress to pass a trading ban for its own members, and has introduced several of his own bills to that effect. Last week, the House passed legislation limiting the ability of members and their families to make individual stock trades; Kean enthusiastically supported it, but said it could have gone further.

The bill also included unrelated provisions related to voter ID, which made most Democrats oppose it. Bennett repeatedly declined to say how she would have voted on the bill had she been in Congress, instead stating that she would fight for a full stock trading ban if elected.

Kean, though, argued that the Democratic opposition to the voter ID provisions were a red herring: “I don’t believe that Democrats would vote for the bill if it didn’t include those additional provisions, I think they’re making that up,” he said. “They’re using any excuse they can to stand in the way of real ethics reform.”

This fall, the issue is one that will be put before 7th District voters directly. Democrats are already signaling that they see Kean’s stock trades as a winning message, and they’re likely to invest quite a bit of money to get that message out, much as Republicans did against Malinowski in 2022. Kean, meanwhile, will have to decide whether to ignore the attacks or push back on them — and if so, how.

Hildebrand, herself a 7th District native, said the entire saga is evidence of the need for broader reforms.

“Kean is writing his own rules and saying, ‘Trust me, this is ethical,’” she said. “But without systemic reforms in place, without independent verification, can the American people trust it?”