Four members of Congress hold millions in defense stock while receiving classified briefings on the Iran war. The penalty for getting caught is $200. The ceasefire expires Wednesday.
| No. 007 |
Five days before the United States struck Venezuela, Senator Markwayne Mullin bought RTX stock. RTX makes the missiles. He sits on Senate Armed Services. He receives the classified briefings. His office says he “does not conduct nor inform trades.” He has traded $24.25 million since 2023. He is not alone. Three other members. Four portfolios. One ceasefire that expires Wednesday.
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Four members of Congress. Four defense portfolios. One classified briefing room. The ceasefire expires Wednesday.
Forward → to one person who thinks the system works.
In This Issue
| I. The Lead: Four members. Four portfolios. One ceasefire that has to fail. |
| II. The Trades: Mullin. Cisneros. McCaul. Moody. |
| III. The Defense: Same sentence. Word for word. Both parties. |
| IV. The Enforcement Vacuum: Fourteen years. Zero prosecutions. |
| V. BTP Breaks: Total Wine had no CEO for five years. Trone told Congress it did. |
| VI. The Virginia Win: Jeffries named eight Florida Republicans. Maximum warfare. |
| VII. 2026 Watch: Michigan. Maine. The war on the ballot. |
| VIII. 2028 Watch: Pritzker. Shapiro. Two decisions that can’t wait. |
| IX. The Jobs Board: Magaziner. American Bridge. ProPublica. Brennan. |
The Iran ceasefire expires Wednesday. Four members of Congress who receive classified briefings on the war hold millions in defense contractor stocks. Those stocks surge every time peace fails.
This is not speculation. The trades are filed. The briefings are logged. The gains are public.
On December 29, 2025, Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican from Oklahoma, purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 in RTX stock. RTX makes the missiles. Five days later, the United States struck Venezuela. Mullin sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He receives classified briefings on military operations.
His office says the trades are handled by a third-party firm. “He does not conduct nor inform trades.” He has bought and sold $24.25 million in stocks since 2023 across 501 trades. Forty percent of his December purchases aligned with sectors his committees oversee. His net worth is between $23.7 million and $100.2 million.
He does not inform trades.
Five days before the war,
a senator bought the missile stock.
He says he didn’t know.
He sits in the room where they decide.
Representative Gil Cisneros, Democrat from California, sits on the House Armed Services Committee. Subcommittees: Intelligence and Special Operations. Seapower and Projection Forces. Since September 2025, he has accumulated nine defense contractor positions. General Dynamics. RTX. Boeing. Lockheed Martin. Honeywell. Palantir. On December 15, he purchased AeroVironment, the drone manufacturer. The stock rose 54 percent in one month.
His spokesperson said the trades are managed by “outside financial advisors who have a fiduciary responsibility to maintain a diverse portfolio.”
Representative Michael McCaul, Republican from Texas, is a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its former chair. He retains classified briefing access on Iran. In January 2025, he bought GE Aerospace stock worth $50,000 to $75,000. It is up 82 percent. In March 2025, he bought Woodward Incorporated, which makes precision controls for military aircraft. It is up 114 percent.
McCaul traded $57.7 million in stocks in 2025 alone. One thousand and eight trades. His career total is $514.65 million across 4,645 trades and 504 different companies.
He has made no public statement about his defense stock positions.
Senator Ashley Moody, Republican from Florida, purchased Howmet Aerospace in January 2025. Between $50,000 and $100,000. A second purchase in April 2025. Between $15,000 and $50,000. Howmet makes structural components for fighter jets and military aircraft. The first purchase is up 107 percent. The second is up 133 percent.
Mullin bought the missile stock. Five days later, the missiles flew. Forty percent of his December trades lined up with the committees he sits on.
Every office gave the same answer. Third-party advisor. Fiduciary responsibility. Diverse portfolio. Independent firm.
Mullin’s spokesperson: “He does not conduct nor inform trades.”
Cisneros’s spokesperson: “The Congressman and his wife do not manage the day-to-day trading of their investments.”
It is the same statement. Word for word across parties. The same PR firm template. The same assumption that the disclosure is the accountability.
The disclosure is not the accountability. The disclosure is the receipt.
The late-filing penalty under the STOCK Act is $200. It is routinely waived by the ethics committees. No member of Congress has ever been prosecuted for insider trading under the STOCK Act. Not one. The law was written by the people it governs.
Quote of the Day
“He does not conduct nor inform trades.”
—Spokesperson for Sen. Markwayne Mullin | $24.25M traded since 2023 | CapitolTrades
What does “inform” mean when you sit in the briefing room? The briefing is in the calendar. The trade is on the tape. The silence is bipartisan.
Number of the Day
On February 28, 2026, Operation Epic Fury launched. Joint U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran. On the first trading day after, March 2, Northrop Grumman rose 6 percent. Lockheed Martin rose 3.5 percent. RTX rose 4.7 percent. Since the June 2025 strikes that started the war, Lockheed Martin is up 40 percent. Northrop Grumman is up 46 percent. Cisneros’s spring 2025 positions gained 38 to 53 percent. McCaul’s GE Aerospace is up 82 percent. Moody’s Howmet is up 133 percent. Moody sits on Senate Armed Services. She votes on the contracts Howmet fills.
The ceasefire expires Wednesday. No deal is in sight. West Texas Intermediate crude jumped 6 percent to $89 a barrel on Monday. Brent surged to $95.50. If the ceasefire fails, every one of these portfolios climbs again.
The law that could hold them accountable has produced exactly zero prosecutions since it passed in 2012. Not one. The penalty for late disclosure is $200. The penalty for insider trading is discretionary —and the discretion sits with the committees the members serve on.
The Enforcement Vacuum
Walk the corridor from Armed Services to the Senate dining room. Mullin has made that walk 501 times since 2023 — once for every trade. Cisneros has nine defense positions waiting at the end of his. The hallway is the same. The rules on paper are the same. The consequences are not.
I have sat in rooms where the question is never on paper but the answer always is. I know what a staffer looks like when they are writing down a thing that is never supposed to be written down. I know the meeting that happens thirty seconds after the briefing —the one where a member steps into the anteroom, takes out the other phone, and says a name and a ticker and a number. Nobody writes that down either. The fine is $200. The ethics committee waives it. Fourteen years. Nobody has had to.
The STOCK Act was passed in 2012 with great speeches. The penalty that was supposed to deter the trade is $200. The prosecutor who is supposed to bring the case has been gutted. The DOJ Public Integrity Section is down to two lawyers. The CFTC has one commissioner left. The SEC’s enforcement chief resigned in March because she was not allowed to do her job.
Fourteen years. Zero prosecutions. A $200 fine for the ones who file late, and nothing for the ones who don't file at all.
BTP Breaks
One name. Every receipt linked. You will not see this anywhere else this week.
From Kevin Peters’ departure in late 2016 until Troy Rice’s elevation in 2022, America’s largest privately owned beer, wine, and spirits retailer had no CEO. A Maryland Bay News investigation reconciled LinkedIn, court records, state regulatory filings, tax returns, and corporate documents to confirm it. Throughout most of that period, David Trone was a sitting member of Congress collecting millions in Total Wine income (MD-6, Jan 2019 –Jan 2025), on the record insisting the company ran independently of him.
The same company defied an FTC Civil Investigative Demand in October 2023. The FTC’s federal court petition: Total Wine “categorically refused to search any employee-maintained files.” The FTC had to sue.
Jan 21, 2026: Total Wine co-founds BAMCO, a federal lobbying coalition pressing Congress to extend the hemp-THC ban deadline. April 2026: Trone trails 49–38 in Hart Research’s April 11–14 poll, just dropped another $5M after self-funding $62M into the 2024 Senate primary he lost.
He told voters a CEO ran his company. The seat was empty for five years. He told the FTC to wait. They sued. Now he’s co-founding a federal lobbying coalition —while running for the chamber that would vote on its ask.
The Virginia Win
Jeffries named eight.
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Maximum warfare. Everywhere. All the time.
— Hakeem Jeffries, April 19, 2026
Virginians did the thing Democrats have spent fifteen years explaining why they couldn’t do. They voted YES —on a ballot measure that stopped a MAGA power grab and protected the integrity of the election. Governor Abigail Spanberger. Speaker Don Scott. Majority Leader Scott Surovell. President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas. The ticket Republicans assumed would roll over ran the table instead.
It was not just Virginia. Democrats won Prop 50 in California. Reclaimed a seat in Utah. Pushed back extremists in Ohio. Halted GOP efforts in Indiana, New Hampshire, Nebraska, and Kansas. For the first time this decade, the map moved the other direction on the same night.
Then Hakeem Jeffries released the statement. It was not a celebration. It was a threat letter.
◆ Screenshot · X · April 19, 2026 ◆ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ✔ @AOC · 1h Hell yes. This is the energy.
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Eight Florida Republicans. Named. In a statement. By the House Minority Leader. Democrats have not talked like that in a decade. AOC quote-tweeted it with four words. That is coalition discipline —progressive flank and leadership office pointing at the same target.
Maximum warfare. Everywhere. All the time. For fifteen years, the other side’s slogan. Tonight, ours.
2026 Watch
The races where the war is already on the ballot.
House ·Generic Ballot D+6
Trump is underwater in 135 GOP-held seats. Best Democratic environment since 2018. Every Armed Services Republican trading defense stocks is sitting in one of those seats. The ceasefire vote is the ad buy.
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Senate ·Michigan $60M in outside money already committed to Mike Rogers —$45M from Senate Leadership Fund, $15M from Sentinel Action Fund. El-Sayed and Piker on Michigan campuses, blowing up the Democratic primary. McMorrow, Stevens, and the apparatus have to answer the populist left before they answer Rogers. The defense-trades story lives or dies in Lansing.
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Senate ·Maine Graham Platner —oyster farmer, veteran, outsider —versus Janet Mills. The template for every 2026 primary where the base and the apparatus want different things. If Platner wins in a state with four Armed Services households holding defense stock, the map is the message.
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2028 Watch
The primary nobody is calling a primary. Yet.
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The 2028 primary started in April 2026. No candidate has filed. The money already has.
Illinois ·The Pritzker Box
JB Pritzker, two-term governor, $3.7B net worth, $300M+ self-funded across two runs. No 2028 committee. No New Hampshire coffee. No Iowa tour. Donor list built, shadow operation staffed, calendar light on Springfield, heavy on the cable green rooms. The announcement is not the signal. The infrastructure is.
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Pennsylvania ·The Shapiro Tripwire
Josh Shapiro, the most frequently named Jewish Democrat on 2028 shortlists. Progressive left still hasn’t forgiven the 2024 campus-protest response. Pro-Israel donor class hasn’t fully committed. Iran ceasefire expires Wednesday. No public statement yet. Silence in April 2026 is a campaign decision. First debate is thirty months out. He already knows the first question.
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By the time a candidate announces, the primary is half decided. We are in the half nobody is watching.
The Jobs Board
Where BTP readers go to work ·Verified openings ·Apply direct
Capitol Hill Legislative Director Office of Rep. Seth Magaziner (RI‑02) ·Washington, DC Apply → |
Opposition Research Tracker / Field Researcher American Bridge 21st Century ·Atlanta, GA Apply → |
Investigative Journalism Washington Reporter ProPublica ·Washington, DC Apply → |
Oversight &Law Senior Counsel, Liberty &National Security Brennan Center for Justice ·New York, NY Apply → |
Four more openings See all 8 openings on the BTP Jobs Board →ProPublica ·CAP ·Public Citizen ·More |
Every posting verified live as of press time. Hiring? [email protected].
This Week’s Homework
Three things to do before Wednesday’s ceasefire deadline.
| 1.Pull one disclosure. CapitolTrades.com is free. Search your senator. Send the first thing you find to three friends. The filings are public; the outrage isn’t, yet. |
| 2.Call one office. Your House member, (202) 225-3121. One sentence: “Will you co-sponsor the Bryan Steil Stop Insider Trading Act? Yes or no.” Write down the answer. |
| 3.Reply with a number. Hit reply. Tell me what dollar amount makes a congressional stock trade stop being “diversification” and start being a bet. The best answers run in next week’s issue. What’s your number? |
| 4.Subscribe. If this landed, lock it in. Free every weekday. The receipts, the names, the math —in your inbox before the hearing starts. |
A Democratic senator sold pharmaceutical holdings weeks before a Senate committee vote on drug pricing. The stocks declined after the vote. The senator’s portfolio did not.
Name, dates, dollar amount —next issue. Reply with tips: [email protected].
Wizards GM Will Dawkins — if this finds you:
One playoff series win since 2017. That's the ledger.
Anthony Davis for Kevin Durant. Straight up. No picks, no filler.
AD is 33 and on a max. KD is a two-time Finals MVP still playing at All-NBA level at 37. One summer and D.C. flips from doormat to destination.
Fix it.
— MSH
For a while, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get back into politics, or how. Writing this newsletter has been the answer, and a better one than I expected.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for the emails. Thank you for the notes about stories you wanted told, and the ones you told me I got wrong. Thank you for forwarding this to the people who needed to see it.
Putting this together every week has been one of the most rewarding things I have done in a long time. The response has been humbling. I am grateful for every one of you, and I am going to keep trying to earn the time you spend reading.
Keep the notes coming.
Michael