On Jan. 9, Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan reported the sale of Apple (AAPL) common stock in an amount between $100,001 and $250,000. The public learned about the sale on Aug. 13… 171 days after the disclosure was due. The transaction and the dates come from Thanedar's own Periodic Transaction Report, filing number 20033910, digitally signed and filed with the Clerk of the House last week.
The standard he missed is not a guideline. Under 5 U.S.C. § 13105(l), added by the STOCK Act in 2012, a member of Congress must file a report of a covered transaction "not later than 30 days after receiving notification" of it "but in no case later than 45 days after such transaction." The House Ethics Committee's own instructions put it more bluntly: A report is due by the earlier of those two dates, and "extensions will not be granted for PTRs." On a Jan. 9 trade, the outside deadline fell around Feb. 23.
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The same filing carries a second late line: a sale of Strategy (MSTR) Class A stock on Oct. 21, 2025, in the $15,001 to $50,000 band. One detail deserves care. The owner column is blank on both entries, and House Ethics instructions make that marker optional, as members "may, but are not required to," indicate that a transaction involves a spouse's or dependent child's asset. So, the filing itself does not establish whose account either sale came from. It does not need to. The STOCK Act treats a spouse's trades exactly like a member's own, with the same 45-day clock and the same $1,000 threshold.
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Here is what the delay actually concealed, which is the part few have calculated. Apple closed at $259.37 on Jan. 9, the day of the reported sale. By Aug. 13, when the filing appeared, AAPL stock closed at $305.26. That's a gain of almost 18% over the window in which the public had no idea the trade had happened.
That arithmetic cuts against the assumption people usually bring to these stories. This was a sale. Apple rose sharply afterward, which means the disclosed trade looks poorly timed in hindsight, not advantageously so. The 171-day gap did not hide a winning bet; it hid one that appears to have left money on the table. What the delay did remove was any ability for constituents to judge it either way for nearly six months.
Congressional disclosures report dollar ranges, not share counts, so no actual gain or loss can be computed from them.
Thanedar is not alone. NOTUS reported on Aug. 14 that he was one of several House members to miss the deadline in the same stretch. Rep. Michael Rulli of Ohio filed a report on Aug. 7 listing 32 transactions running from November 2024 to Aug. 6, 2026… of which 22 fell outside the 45-day window. All were in the $1,001 to $15,000 band, and every line was flagged as a Merrill Lynch managed account.
NOTUS also reported that Rep. Tracey Mann of Kansas disclosed 10 of his wife's trades in large technology stocks roughly two years late. That account rests on NOTUS rather than independent verification. Mann's report was filed on paper, and the scanned document carries no machine-readable text, so the individual dates, tickers, and amounts could not be confirmed from the filing itself. No price calculation is applied to his trades for that reason.
The consequence is smaller than most readers may assume. Under the Ethics Committee's published schedule, a first late report draws a $200 fee regardless of how many transactions were missed. The second through fourth draw $200 for each month containing a late transaction, and from the fifth onward it becomes $200 per transaction. The fee attaches only to filings made more than 30 days past due, and the committee may waive it, but only in extraordinary circumstances. There appears to be no published data on how often waivers are granted.
Congress has circled a stricter rule for years without landing on one. The Stop Insider Trading Act passed the House 232-198 on July 22 and has sat on the Senate calendar since early August; it would bar members, spouses, and dependents from purchasing publicly traded securities, with penalties of $2,000 or 10% of the investment's value, whichever is greater. A Senate bill covering the President and Vice President has been on the calendar since December. A discharge petition to force a floor vote on a full ban had 84 of the 218 signatures needed as of June.
The frustration behind all of this is bipartisan and long predates these filings. Barchart has covered the perception that lawmakers do unusually well in the market, from Joe Rogan's claim that Nancy Pelosi picks stocks better than Warren Buffett to an Intel (INTC) trade that may have come too late. What gets missed is that the raw material is public. Every report here is free to read and searchable by name, and Apple's current price is on its quote page. The 45-day rule only works if somebody looks.
On the date of publication, Caleb Naysmith did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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