Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) will amend a personal financial disclosure report to correct what her reelection campaign says is an error, after ethical questions were raised over stock she and her husband own.
The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that Shaheen and her husband have a financial stake in a company that received federal stimulus funding. According to the Globe, the Shaheens acquired up to $15,000 in stock options for the company Ultrawave, which also received $78,000 in federal stimulus funds.
Shaheen voted for the $787 billion stimulus, and her husband William Shaheen, who runs a lobbying that briefly had a "stimulus opportunities team" to help clients, advised Ultrawave.
"It absolutely is a concern," Charlton Copeland, former chair of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust and a professor at the University of Miami told the Boston Globe. "It raises questions because so much of the work of this kind of policymaking takes place outside of the specter of the public eye."
According to the Globe, "the Shaheens declined multiple requests for interviews and would not answer most detailed questions about their investments and connection to the firm.
Personal disclosure reports filed by Shaheen in May still listed the stocks as assets and also say they are not scheduled to expire on Sep. 1, 2019. However, the Shaheen campaign says those stocks have in fact expired.
A Shaheen spokesperson told a Concord Monitor reporter Thursday that Shaheen will amend her financial disclosure statement to correct the information.
New Hampshire Republicans say the disclosure does not clear up questions surrounding the potential conflict of interest.
"It's clear that Senator Shaheen provided inaccurate information to the Senate Ethics Committee on her personal financial disclosure form," New Hampshire GOP Chairman Jennifer Horn said in a statement. "This error raises questions about a potential conflict of interest involving the Shaheens and their involvement with a company that received federal stimulus funds. It's also troubling that these discrepancies were only revealed after the Shaheens faced media security about their questionable finances. "