Harry Truman Was Right

“Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician, and I'll show you a crook.” – Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States

O.K., so ol’ Harry didn’t exactly die a pauper, having sold his memoirs in 1953 for $670,000 (the equivalent of almost $8 million today). He also saved portions of his presidential salary, which was $75,000 during his first term and $100,000 in his second, and received a $25,000 annual presidential pension starting in 1958.

However, Truman’s wealth was relatively small compared to many of his successors and it certainly wasn’t ill-gotten. Unlike, shall we say, some current members of Congress.

Exhibit A is Nancy Pelosi, the 20-term congresswoman from California and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. When Pelosi first took office in 1987, she and her husband Paul reported holding between $610,000 and $785,000 in stocks. Meanwhile, her congressional salary peaked at $178,000 per year when she was speaker.

Fast forward to November 2025 and – according to Quiver Quantitative, which tracks politicians’ finances – Pelosi’s net worth now totals $281 million, more than doubling from the $121.59 million she was worth at the end of 2015. In case you’re wondering, that kind of return far outpaced that of Berkshire Hathaway, the brokerage firm led by legendary investor Warren Buffet, known as the “Oracle of Omaha”.

Can you say, “insider trading”?

Pelosi has stakes in Nvidia, Microsoft, Salesforce, Google, and Amazon, each of which are valued between $5 million and $25 million. Nancy and Paul Pelosi also own an investment firm called Financial Leasing Services Inc. as well as an estimated $45 million in commercial and residential real estate.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “Lawmakers often have access to nonpublic information that can move financial markets, as well as the power to shape policies in sectors in which they have financial interests.”

Now, THAT’s an understatement if there ever was one!

Sadly, but not surprisingly, Pelosi isn’t the only person on Capitol Hill who is apparently guilty of using insider information to line her own pockets.

In 2008, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) reportedly bet against the market right after attending a closed-door briefing with the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve Chair, and then profited when stocks fell. In 2020, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sold off major stock holdings just before markets crashed at the onset of COVID-19. And in 2025, Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA) sold hospital bonds just weeks after voting on legislation that put those same hospitals at risk.

Finally, there is now some long overdue bipartisan momentum to change the rules. Rep. Dave Min (D-CA) recently introduced legislation called the Stock Act 2.0, also known as the Trust in Congress Act, saying, “No one is above the law, and no one should be using the government to enrich themselves.”

If passed, the bill would require all members of Congress, and even their spouses, to place their investments in blind trusts for the duration of their time in office. That means lawmakers couldn’t buy, sell, or even know which stocks were being traded on their behalf while they serve.

Like I said… long overdue. Too bad it wasn’t in place in 1987 when Nancy Pelosi was trading on her inside information to become a multi-millionaire. And what a shame it wasn’t in effect last year when Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and her husband “struck gold” in Minnesota, but not the underground kind.

Enter Exhibit B.

In late 2022, the investment firm Rose Lake Capital, which was formed by Omar’s husband Tim Mynett and his partner Will Hailer, had $42.44 in its bank account. For the sake of clarity, Mynett wasn’t Omar’s first husband. That was Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi (né Aden), to whom Omar was engaged in 2002, and had an “unofficial faith-based Islamic marriage” which produced two children but ended in an Islamic divorce in 2008.

And Mynett wasn’t Omar’s second husband either. That was Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British Somali, whom she married in 2009 and divorced in an Islamic ceremony in 2011. Rumors are that Elmi may actually be Omar’s brother and that she married him to illegally emigrate to the United States.

That’s just plain creepy!

No, Tim Mynett is Omar’s third husband, whom she married in 2020 – but not before having a third child with Hirsi in 2012, legally marrying him in 2018, and then divorcing him in 2019.

Is your head spinning yet?

In 2020, when Omar and Mynett tied the knot, Tim was a political consultant working for her congressional campaign. Not so coincidentally, Mynett’s political consulting firm, the E Street Group, received $2.78 million in contracts from Omar's campaign during the 2020 cycle.

Where there’s that much smoke, folks, there is bound to be F-I-R-E.

But wait! Remember Mynett’s bank account balance of $42.44 in 2022? Somehow, someway, it miraculously mushroomed to $25 million a mere 12 months later, according to Omar’s 2024 House filing. Rose Lake Capital explains the 3,500% increase in assets by stating on its website that its officers had billions in “previous” assets under management.

Yeah, right, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn and some swampland in Florida to sell you at bargain basement prices.

House Oversight panel Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) isn’t buying what Omar and Mynett are selling. There are a lot of questions as to how her husband accumulated so much wealth over the past two years,” Comer said. “It’s not possible. It’s not. I’m a money guy. It’s not possible.”

Back in 1971, Cher recorded and released a solo album with a single that soon became a #1 hit in both Canada and the U.S. It was titled "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves" and it sold more than 1 million records domestically and another 200,000 in the United Kingdom. The somewhat controversial lyrics allude to prostitution and include the words, "every night all the men would come around and lay their money down."

Who knew that Cher was really describing some members of the United States Congress.