In a startling revelation, it has emerged that Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D., Texas) held shares in at least 25 companies that she failed to disclose during her inaugural congressional run in 2022.
This information came to light despite her admission of these holdings in the previous year while serving as a Texas state legislator. Even after her arrival in Washington in 2023, Crockett did not disclose these stock holdings.
The financial portfolio of this left-leaning firebrand, as revealed by records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, contradicts her public image as an eco-warrior and progressive icon. Interestingly, Crockett, who identifies as a civil rights attorney, was also involved in the cannabis business.
She attempted to establish marijuana dispensaries in Ohio, even while representing a man accused of murder in a botched marijuana deal. Both in the Texas statehouse and in Congress, Crockett has been a vocal advocate for the decriminalization of marijuana.
The records obtained by the Free Beacon provide a glimpse into the personal financial life of the 44-year-old Crockett, who claims to be self-reliant. "I have no husband, y'all. Never been married, never been engaged," she stated in an interview in February, emphasizing her single status by showing her ringless hands.
The sophomore House member's stock holdings include shares in several corporations that could potentially benefit from her legislative actions and bills she has introduced in Congress. These corporations contradict the image she has cultivated as a champion of green energy.
In her final financial disclosure as a Texas state lawmaker for the 2021 calendar year, Crockett reported owning a substantial stock portfolio, including stakes in major pharmaceutical, fossil fuel, technology, automobile, and marijuana firms. However, the outspoken progressive, who recently hinted at a possible Senate run in Texas, did not disclose any of these stocks in her first congressional financial disclosure, which also covered her financial holdings during the 2021 calendar year.
The 25 undisclosed stocks in Crockett's portfolio include shares in Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, General Motors, Uber, DuPont, ExxonMobil, American Airlines, AT&T, Aurora Cannabis, Ford, "Corporate Cannabis," and "Stocks Worldwide," according to the records.
Additionally, Crockett reported debts of at least $110,000 in her last Texas financial disclosure, none of which she disclosed in her first congressional financial disclosure covering the same calendar year.
Congressional candidates are required to file detailed financial disclosures. If successful, they must file additional disclosures at the start of their terms. False or incomplete financial reports can result in civil and even criminal penalties.
Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of ethics watchdog Americans for Public Trust, expressed to the Free Beacon that Crockett's undisclosed stock portfolio and debts raise significant conflict of interest concerns. Several of the companies, particularly those in the pharmaceutical and marijuana industries, could benefit from her actions in the Texas state legislature and Congress.
"Personal financial disclosure rules are in place to make sure Members of Congress do not engage in conflicts of interest while working for the American people," Sutherland stated. "The concerns surrounding the extreme discrepancies between Representative Crockett's state and federal financial disclosures are certainly legitimate. If she is found to have improperly reported her assets and liabilities, further inquiry and possible penalties would be warranted."
Crockett reported owning fewer than 100 shares in each of the 25 stocks she disclosed in her Texas financial disclosure for the 2021 calendar year but omitted from her congressional disclosure for the same year. It remains unclear whether Crockett still owns shares in these companies, as House members are only required to publicly disclose their stock holdings that exceed $1,000. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.
It is also uncertain whether Crockett still owes the debts she reported in her last Texas financial disclosure. She reported owing at least $46,580 to both the Texans Federal Credit Union and Wells Fargo at the end of 2021. Crockett also reported to Texas owing between $18,630 and $46,580 to an individual named Ben Babcock. None of these debts were disclosed in her congressional financial disclosure for the 2021 calendar year.
Crockett's debt to Babcock may be related to a home she appears to have rented while serving in the Texas state legislature. Crockett's Texas financial disclosures show her debt to Babcock steadily increased from 2019 through 2021. Meeting minutes of the Dallas City Plan Commission in 2020 and the Dallas City Council in 2021 show that Crockett lived in a home in West Dallas that city tax records show is owned by Ben Babcock. And Zillow property records show the home was rented to a single tenant from 2019 through 2022.
Babcock did not respond to requests for comment.
During her tenure as a Texas state lawmaker, Crockett introduced several pieces of legislation that could have benefited her cannabis holdings. These included bills that would have decriminalized drug paraphernalia associated with marijuana use and expanded access to medical marijuana in the state.
Although none of these bills became law in Texas, Crockett continued her advocacy for marijuana after taking her seat in Congress, co-sponsoring legislation in August to decriminalize marijuana at the national level.
Crockett maintains personal ties to the cannabis business through Black Diamond Investments, a firm she reported as owning in her latest congressional financial disclosure.
Indeed, the marijuana bills could have provided (or even provide) a personal boon to Crockett. The congresswoman's official biography portrays her as a crusading civil rights lawyer who represented Black Lives Matter protesters pro bono, but in the years just before her election to the Texas House in 2020, Crockett's efforts were devoted in part to Black Diamond Investments, a firm which sought, unsuccessfully, from 2018 to 2020, to be licensed to operate marijuana dispensaries in Ohio.
Black Diamond Investments identified Crockett as a 20 percent owner of the firm in a 148-page application it submitted to the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program in 2018. The firm disclosed in the application exhaustive business plans for its proposed dispensary, including Crockett's day-to-day duties as its chief operations officer.
Crockett was listed as the only contact for the firm during the application process. At the time, medical marijuana was legal in Ohio, but subject to far more restrictions in Texas, where Black Diamond LLC was based.
Back in Texas, Crockett's legal work would have given her insight into the harms of the marijuana trade. In 2018, she represented Tyvon Montrel Gullatt, a Texarkana man charged with murder in a marijuana deal gone bad. Gullatt was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Crockett's "civil rights" work saw her representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against wealthy institutions that could haveor could yetdeliver her multimillion-dollar fees. Appearing live earlier this year on The Breakfast Club, she brought upand laughed offinternet reports that she is worth $9 million but said she may be in line for some very lucrative fees from long-running civil rights cases she worked on before entering government.
If House ethics rules prevent her from taking her cut, Crockett told the Breakfast Club hosts, she'll quit Congress, take the money, then run again.
As a state representative in 2021, Crockett was also a vocal advocate for COVID-19 vaccine mandates, a policy that provided a boon for the pharmaceutical firms in her stock portfolio that manufactured those vaccines, including Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. She criticized "right-wing nuts" who opposed vaccine mandates in 2021 and has been a vocal opponent in Congress of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine policies, accusing him of playing politics with people's lives.
Crockett's undisclosed stock portfolio could also open her up to charges of hypocrisy. She says climate change is an "existential crisis" that hits communities of color the hardest and purports to be a champion of the transition to green energy.
But she also omitted from her congressional financial disclosure reports her ownership of stock in ExxonMobil, a fossil fuel giant that has been sued by several liberal state and local governments for allegedly causing climate change.
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