Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) filed inaccurate financial disclosures throughout her entire first term in the Senate, her attorney revealed in a July 26 notice to the secretary of the Senate.
Rosen failed to disclose her position as trustee of the Larry and Jacklyn Rosen Family Trust in each of her Senate financial disclosures dating back to 2018, according to the notice from Rosen’s attorney, Kate Sawyer Keane of the Elias Law Group. The position indicates that Rosen has legal responsibility over the management of the trust and its accounts, which in 2022 held up to $14.6 million worth of underlying assets, according to her financial disclosure that year.
Rosen’s stock holdings through her family trust have opened her up to charges of hypocrisy as she faces a tight reelection race against Republican challenger Army veteran Sam Brown. She boasted in an April campaign ad that she "took on big drug companies," but she owns stock in major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, through her family trust. Rosen has also fashioned herself as a leader in the fight against climate change, but throughout her political career her trust has held positions in several major energy companies, E&E News reported.
The Nevada Democrat also claimed in 2023 she had "no control" over the trust’s stock trades, a claim now under question following the revelation that she has served as its trustee throughout her entire political career.
Rosen came under fire in 2023 after the Daily Beast reported she had violated the STOCK Act during her first and only term in the House in 2017 by failing to disclose an exchange her family trust made in a natural gas company within 45 days. A Rosen spokesman had brushed aside Republican attacks on her alleged STOCK Act violation, telling the Washington Examiner that the trade was an automatic exchange worth up to $15,000 "that the Rosen’s [sic] had no control over."
Rosen changed her tune on the trade following her revelation that she’s a trustee of her family trust. A spokesman for her office told the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday it was a transaction "the Rosens could not have directed."
"Since she was first elected to Congress, Senator Rosen has fully disclosed her family trust and its underlying assets and transactions on her personal financial disclosures," the Rosen spokesman said. "This amendment was filed alongside her latest annual report to ensure the trustee position was listed correctly in all appropriate sections of her PFD."
Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at the progressive think tank Public Citizen, said the errors Rosen corrected on her financial disclosures are "quite substantial." Senators are subject to a $200 penalty for late financial disclosure filings, but Holman said it’s unlikely Rosen will face any fines from the Senate Ethics Committee.
"If there was no deliberate effort to avoid the disclosure—assuming it was just a misunderstanding—the penalties are not so substantial," Holman told the Washington Free Beacon. "The ethics committee tends to be satisfied if the filer eventually corrects the record and now makes an accurate disclosure. If there was no deliberate evasion involved, I would not expect any penalty beyond $200 for each late filing, and even this could be waived by the committee."
The Senate Ethics Committee declined to comment.
As Rosen filed inaccurate financial disclosures to the public, she also fell behind paying her property taxes on her $1 million, six-bedroom home in Henderson, Nevada. She was late paying $1,074 in property taxes due in March 2018, the Free Beacon reported, and fell behind again paying a $2,279 property tax bill in January 2020.