Rep. Kelly's wife again bought stock in company that gained from his legislative efforts

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly's wife made a nearly identical stock purchase in March to one that resulted in a 2021 ethics investigation into insider trading.

Victoria Kelly on March 28 purchased up to $100,000 in stock in steel manufacturer Cleveland-Cliffs. At the same time, the seven-term Republican congressman, along with other elected officials, were pushing the U.S. Department of Energy to reconsider a proposed rule that would have changed the type of steel used in production of electrical distribution transformers. The department was considering switching to amorphous steel from grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES), which is produced at the Cleveland-Cliffs Butler Works plant in Kelly's hometown.

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Kelly, whose 16th District includes Erie and Butler counties, and others argued the move would have jeopardized 1,300 jobs at the Butler plant, the only remaining domestic producer of GOES, and also posed a national security risk because the largest producers of amorphous steel are located overseas, including in China.

Kelly held a town hall April 1 in Butler that was attended by 525 people, according to estimates from his office. The push May have had some effect. On April 4, the Department of Energy issued its final proposed rule change, which maintained the use of grain-oriented electrical steel in distribution transformers.

The Department of Energy first proposed the rule change in January 2023. Kelly and Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-17th Dist., on Dec. 6 wrote to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to express "strong opposition" to the rule change.

Kelly's wife purchased between $50,001 to $100,000 of Cleveland-Cliffs stock March 28. Kelly reported that he was made aware of the trade on May 15. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge of 2012 requires members of Congress to report stock purchases within 30 days of being made aware of the transaction or 45 days from the transaction itself.

The Cleveland-Cliffs stock purchase was the largest of the 11 stocks Victoria Kelly purchased that were listed on the June 14 financial disclosure.

Several investment sites including investing.com on Monday were the first to report Victoria Kelly's most recent stock purchases.

Kelly through a spokesman declined to comment to the Times-News.

Similar circumstances

The circumstances involving Victoria Kelly's stock purchase were nearly identical to a stock purchase she made into Cleveland-Cliffs on April 29, 2020, when she bought between $15,001 and $50,000 of the company's stock as her husband was lobbying the Trump administration to extend previously imposed tariffs on steel imports to grain-oriented electrical steel. Without tariff protection, the company argued its Butler and Zanesville, Ohio, plants would be unprofitable.

Between the time she bought the stock at $4.70 a share and sold it in January 2021, the value of the stock increased some 400%, to $18.11 a share.

More: House ethics panel to continue probe of Rep. Kelly over wife's purchase of stock in steel firm

Months later, the Office of Congressional Ethics launched a probe into the stock buy.

It concluded that the stock purchase was a "clear departure from (Victoria Kelly's) investment practices." It also found that Kelly's staff learned a day before the stock purchase that then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross planned to announce an investigation into foreign steel imports, a precursor to extending tariff protections, and that Kelly himself likely knew the same day of the development given his personal involvement in the matter.

Kelly, his wife and his chief of staff at the time, Matthew Stroia, refused to cooperate with the Office of Congressional Ethics review.

It transferred its report to the House Committee on Ethics in July 2021. That October, the House Committee on Ethics announced it would continue to investigate the matter.

At the time, Kelly's office defended his spouse's stock purchase, saying it was intended to show support to the Butler community and that it was due to his transparency that the public learned about the transaction.

The House Committee on Ethics has not reported on the status of the probe since announcing it would continue to investigate the matter in late 2021. Republicans took control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections.

Matthew Rink can be reached at [email protected] or on X at @ETNRink.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Rep. Mike Kelly: Wife bought company stock he was helping in D.C.