Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., supports banning stock trading by members of Congress and has repeatedly challenged the Trump administration over transparency. Yet, he was less forthcoming about his wife’s stock trading.

On April 30, 2025, Wyden’s wife benefited from a six-figure stock share exchange, but Wyden didn’t report the exchange until August 8, 2026 – 465 days later. This violated the STOCK Act, which Wyden supports, which requires disclosure within 45 days. The Act was signed into law in April 2012.

Politico first reported the violation in August, and Wyden spokesperson Hank Stern told The Washington Sun at the time that the exchange was “automatic and done without direction by the senator’s wife” and that Wyden only learned about it when he was preparing his annual personal financial disclosure.

Wyden spokesperson says rules aren't clear

“She’s an independent small businesswoman who keeps separate finances from her husband and she has a small business to keep afloat,” Stern told the outlet. 

Stern also said that while Wyden supports a presidential and congressional stock-trading ban, “he’s not going to ask his wife to upend her small business before there’s a clear set of rules for everyone.”

There are already clear rules for everyone in relation to Wyden’s violation. The STOCK Act was passed in 2012 and requires members of Congress to report financial transactions, including stock trades valued at more than $1,000, made by themselves, their spouses, and their dependent children. The trade was made on behalf of Wyden’s wife, who owned stock in the publicly traded company Amcor, and likely came as a result of Amcor’s all-stock combination with Berry Global on the day the trade was made.

Wyden and others asked the SEC to investigate Trump

Wyden has been less forgiving towards President Donald Trump. Wyden and other Democratic lawmakers asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April 2025 to investigate Trump for insider trading and market manipulation in relation to his tariff pause. Others signing the letter besides Wyden, Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, were Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senators Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

“We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public and whether any insiders, including the President’s family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the President’s announcement,” the senators wrote in their letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins. “Before pausing the tariffs that threw markets into disarray, President Trump appears to have previewed his plans to do so on Truth Social: at 9:37 am, he announced, ‘THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.’ His official announcement of the tariff pause came roughly 4 hours later at 1:18 pm.”

Then-White House spokesman Kush Desai dismissed comments from Schiff and other Democrats raising concerns about possible insider trading by Trump, according to CNBC. The New York Times noted that "Financial experts said that they had seen no immediate proof of insider trading and that many of the spikes in purchasing on Wednesday had occurred at the same time as the announcement."

There has been no public confirmation that the SEC launched a formal investigation.

Wyden has also repeatedly demanded transparency from Trump and his administration, including information in files related to Jeffrey Epstein, Big Tobacco and Kratom companies, as well as the Trump administration’s deals with pharmaceutical companies to lower prescription drug costs.