GOP Lawmaker Chris Collins to Resign, Plead Guilty to Insider Trading

(Bloomberg) -- Representative Chris Collins, a Republican from New York, is resigning from Congress as he prepares to plead guilty in an insider-trading case.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spokesman Drew Hammill said her office received a letter of resignation from Collins and that it will take effect on Tuesday.

The congressman was charged last year with passing non-public information about Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., an Australian biotechnology company, to his son. Collins is scheduled to change his plea to guilty in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, according to court documents.

Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse President Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Last week, he criticized House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against the president as a “witch hunt.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.