Article snippet: According to federal prosecutors, last summer’s jovial congressional picnic at the White House quickly turned south for Rep. MORE. The New York Republican, a close ally of MORE and one of his earliest supporters on Capitol Hill, was attending the annual event — a lighthearted gala for members of Congress — when an email arrived from the head of a pharmaceutical company bearing dismal news for the conservative lawmaker who sat on its board: A promising multiple sclerosis drug had failed its clinical trials, and the results would soon go public, threatening to tank the company’s value. ADVERTISEMENT “No doubt we will want to consider this extremely bad news,” read the message from the CEO of Innate Immunotherapeutics, according to a grand jury indictment handed down Wednesday. Within 15 minutes, an incredulous Collins had responded: “Wow. Makes no sense. How are these results even possible???” Collins was Innate’s top shareholder at the time, and had pitched House colleagues and investors back home in New York on the company’s impending success. Several members of Collins’s family had also purchased shares of Innate, leaving some of congressman’s closest relatives on the hook for massive losses. What Collins did next, prosecutors allege, was a classic case of insider trading and securities fraud. Collins allegedly contacted his son, Cameron Collins, to convey the news in a six-minute phone call from the White House lawn, the same spot where Collins had posed for ... Link to the full article to read more