Louisiana Congressman Bought Oracle Stock Days Before TikTok Deal Went Public
Highlights
- Rep. Cleo Fields (D-La.) bought between $80,000-$200,000 in Oracle stock on Sept. 17, 18, and 23—days before the TikTok deal went public Sept. 22
- Fields sits on the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, which oversees the securities industry
- Government watchdogs called the timing “fishy” because of Fields’ committee position
- The STOCK Act bars Congress members from using insider information for personal trades; what Fields knew remains unclear
- Congress is working on bills to ban lawmakers from trading individual stocks
Louisiana Congressman Cleo Fields Purchased Oracle Stock Days Before TikTok Deal Announcement
Rep. Cleo Fields made Oracle purchases just before President Trump announced the tech company’s role in TikTok’s U.S. restructuring
BATON ROUGE, La. (KPEL News) — Louisiana Congressman Cleo Fields bought tens of thousands of dollars in Oracle stock days before the company’s role in the TikTok deal went public. The timing has people asking questions, especially since Fields sits on a committee that oversees the securities industry.
Congressional financial disclosure documents reviewed by NOTUS show Fields made three separate Oracle purchases totaling between $80,000 and $200,000 on September 17, 18, and 23.
News of Oracle’s role in the TikTok deal broke publicly on September 22—one day before Fields’ last purchase. President Trump announced the deal with an executive order the following week.
What This Means for Louisiana
Fields represents Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, which runs diagonally across the state from Shreveport to Baton Rouge. That includes communities in Caddo, Natchitoches, Rapides, Avoyelles, St. Landry, and East Baton Rouge parishes. He returned to the U.S. House in January 2025 after being out of Congress for 28 years.
Here’s the thing: Fields sits on the House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets. That committee writes laws that govern financial markets and the securities industry.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, passed in 2012, says members of Congress can’t use insider information from their jobs to make money on stock trades. Lawmakers have to report any stock trades over $1,000 within 30 days, but they only have to give ranges—not exact amounts.
Break the STOCK Act? The fine is $200 for a first offense. That’s not much of a deterrent when trades can be worth thousands or millions. And here’s something else: No member of Congress has ever been criminally prosecuted for insider trading under the STOCK Act.
The Big Question: What Did Fields Know?
Nobody knows what information Fields had about Oracle’s TikTok deal when he made these purchases. We also don’t know if Fields made the trades himself or if a financial adviser did it for him. Fields’ congressional office got the media questions but hasn’t responded.
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette works for the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight. He’s skeptical about how this looks. Government watchdog groups say the timing is bad because Fields sits on the Financial Services Committee. Members of that committee see market-sensitive information, and they should know better than to create even the appearance of a problem.
The Oracle trades are just part of Fields’ September buying. Records show he also bought shares in Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Broadcom, Nvidia, and other big tech companies that month. His total September purchases might have been several hundred thousand dollars.
Stock Trading in Congress
Fields isn’t the only Louisiana congressman trading stocks. Members of Congress from both parties regularly trade stocks in companies their committees oversee or that do business with the federal government.
Back in July, Fields’ office told OpenSecrets that the congressman “has complied with all rules outlined by the House of Representatives.” That came after questions about a June buying spree worth between $3.56 million and $11.07 million.
Since Fields bought his Oracle shares, the stock price has gone up and down a bit. It dipped from the September highs but stayed fairly stable. Oracle was up almost 3% on Wednesday after the formal TikTok announcement.
The Push to Ban Congressional Stock Trading
Fields’ Oracle purchases come while Congress is working on banning lawmakers from trading individual stocks. In September 2025, lawmakers from both parties introduced the “Restore Trust in Congress Act.” The bill would stop members, their spouses, and their kids from owning or trading individual stocks.
House Speaker Mike Johnson backs a stock trading ban. So does House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. President Trump said he supports it too. That’s given the reform effort real momentum after it stalled for years.
Polls show 75-86% of Americans want Congress banned from trading stocks. People across party lines agree on this. The feeling is that lawmakers profit from insider knowledge while making laws that affect those same companies. That’s helped push congressional approval ratings to historic lows.
Morris Pearl chairs Patriotic Millionaires—a group of wealthy Americans pushing back against wealth concentration. He says even the appearance of conflicts hurts public trust just as much as actual wrongdoing. The STOCK Act made congressional trading visible, and that transparency has actually made people angrier about the problem.
What Happens Next
Americans overwhelmingly want Congress to ban members from trading stocks, but previous bills have gone nowhere. Different proposals couldn’t agree on enforcement, how long members would have to sell their stocks, or what the penalties should be.
The “Restore Trust in Congress Act” is the first time competing proposals have come together behind one bill. That removes a major roadblock. But Senate leadership hasn’t committed to a floor vote. Some lawmakers still have concerns about the restrictions.
For people in Louisiana’s 6th District, the Fields disclosure raises a basic question: Are elected representatives putting public service first, or their personal bank accounts? That question hits different in a district that was created specifically to give Louisiana’s Black communities fair representation in Congress.
Is this a political scandal? How does it measure up to these famous scandals from Louisiana's colorful history?
