In a statement to CNBC, attorneys for Collins vowed to "mount a vigorous defense to clear his good name."
They added: "It is notable that even the government does not allege that Congressman Collins traded a single share of Innate Therapeutics stock. We are confident he will be completely vindicated and exonerated."
Later on Wednesday, Collins issued a statement sharing the "very bad news" with his supporters while vowing to continue his re-election fight for the 2018 midterms in November, according to a New York Times reporter.
Cameron Collins' attorney, Rebecca Ricigliano, said, "We look forward to addressing these charges in court, and will not be commenting on this case outside of the courtroom."
An attorney for Zarsky told CNBC they had no comment at this time.
Collins was Trump's first supporter in Congress, and was reportedly a member of his transition team after the 2016 presidential election. The 27th congressional district in New York, which Collins currently represents, voted for Trump at a higher level than any other district in the state in 2016.
The indictment related to Innate draws new attention to an ex-Trump administration official: former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who was grilled by lawmakers during his confirmation hearings in January 2017 about a tip on the company he allegedly received from Collins.
Price resigned last September following an embarrassing series of news stories detailing his use of pricey commercial and charter jet travel during his brief tenure as HHS chief.
HHS' Office of Inspector General last month said the department should try to recoup at least $341,000 that Price had wasted on the flights. Just one out of the 21 such flights he took met all federal requirements, the watchdog said in a report.
A spokesman for Price told CNBC, "Dr. Price addressed his ownership of Innate Immunotherapeutics stock during his confirmation hearings for HHS Secretary and sold any stock he held in February 2017." The spokesman declined to respond to CNBC's questions about whether Price has been contacted by the DOJ in relation to this case, or if he has hired attorneys.
Separately, a source close to Price told CNBC that the former HHS secretary was not questioned by investigators from the Southern District of New York.
Republican Rep. Chris Collins' arrest and indictment on insider trading charges Wednesday suddenly makes his safe red congressional district a lot more interesting in November's midterm elections.
The New York 27th District, lodged between Buffalo and Rochester in the western part of the state, has grown more Republican since Collins first won it narrowly in 2012. The area backed President Donald Trump by nearly 25 percentage points in 2016, while Collins breezed to re-election with about 67 percent of the vote.
The stain of the insider trading accusations quickly makes the district more competitive — although it still favors Republicans. Regardless, the GOP cannot afford another contested seat in the state as it fights to stop Democrats from winning the 23 Republican-held seats the party needs to take a House majority.
Nonpartisan election analysis sites Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball moved their ratings for the district to "likely" Republican from "solid" "safe" Republican, respectively, on Wednesday. A scandal can cause a 10- to 12-percentage-point swing and Collins' arrest is "perhaps on the more severe side," tweeted Nate Silver, data guru and editor in chief of analytics site FiveThirtyEight.
Collins pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday. In an email to supporters earlier in the day, the representative said his "focus is to defeat these charges in court" and that he will "not address any issues related" to the accusations outside of the courtroom, according to New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher. Collins stressed that he does not plan to abandon his re-election bid as of now.
"As I fight to clear my name, rest assured that I will continue to work hard for the people of the 27th Congressional District of New York while remaining on the ballot for reelection this November," he wrote.
Collins appears likely to stay on the ballot: relevant periods to give up a party nomination have passed, according to the New York State Board of Elections. The deadline for a special election under New York law has also passed.
Liberals seized on the news of Collins' arrest almost immediately. The New York Working Families Party started to raise money for the Democratic candidate in the race, Grand Island Town Supervisor Nate McMurray. The party said, "We can defeat this corrupt Trump Republican and win this seat in November." Collins was Trump's first supporter in Congress during the 2016 campaign.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also contended that "this seat is firmly in play for Democrats."
On the other side of the aisle, the GOP indicated that it was taking the matter seriously. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called for a "prompt and thorough" investigation into the allegations and removed Collins from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"Insider trading is a clear violation of the public trust," Ryan said in a statement.
A New York Republican Congress member who bragged about turning his friends and acquaintances into millionaires — and was one of President Trump’s earliest and biggest supporters — was just arrested and charged with insider trading.
Rep. Chris Collins, along with his son Cameron Collins and the father of his son’s fiancée, Stephen Zarsky, was arrested by FBI agents early Wednesday morning, according to NBC News. The case is centered on the Australia-based pharmaceutical company Innate Immunotherapeutics, a company in which Collins is currently the No. 2 shareholder. At one point, he held more than $45 million in Innate stock.
According to the federal government’s indictment, Collins shared non-public information about Innate — specifically, about negative results resulting from Innate’s clinical trials — with his son, who then passed that information along to Zarsky. The federal government alleges that by doing so, Collins, his son, and Zarsky were able to avoid nearly $800,000 in potential losses.
Collins’s connections with Innate Immunotherapeutics are well-known, with the Daily Beast reporting in 2017 that Collins had had close ties with the company since 2005. He encouraged many of his Republican colleagues to buy Innate stock, including former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price (in fact, claims of insider trading were leveled against Price during his confirmation hearing). According to Business Insider in June 2017:
Price bought shares of the company in 2015 and 2016 while still a member of the House, representing Georgia. At least four of Collins’ Republican House colleagues followed suit, buying into Innate in January when the company traded at an all-time high of about $1.20 per share. Collins’ chief of staff, Michael Hook, is among Innate’s top 20 shareholders, as are two of the congressman’s children. “I talk about it at every turn, just like you talk about your kids hitting a home run and your daughter getting into law school,” Collins told The Hill ...
He even bragged publicly, and in front of reporters, about how many of his friends, colleagues, and donors he had made wealthy by recommending they invest in Innate.
OH in the speaker's lobby: 'Do you know how many millionaires I've made in Buffalo the past few months?' -@RepChrisCollins on his cellphone — Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) January 10, 2017
Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump, doing so on February 24, 2016, and he served as the congressional liaison to the Trump transition team.
In response to the federal government’s indictment, Collins’s lawyers released a statement Wednesday morning saying, “We are confident he will be completely vindicated and exonerated.”
Read the indictment below:
(CNN) Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged New York Republican Rep. Chris Collins, his son and another man with 13 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud and false statements stemming from an alleged insider trading scheme centered on an Australian pharmaceutical company.
Collins, who was the first sitting member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump's presidential bid , surrendered Wednesday morning at his attorney's office in Manhattan, according to the FBI.
Prosecutors at the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York alleged in an indictment that Collins and the other defendants acted on nonpublic information about the results of a drug trial and used it to trade on the stock of the pharmaceutical company, Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited, of which Collins was a board member.
The indictment doesn't allege that Collins himself traded on the information about the failed results of a drug trial, but that he passed the information to his son, Cameron Collins, so that the younger Collins could execute trades. And it alleges that the younger Collins passed the information to others, including his fiancee's father, Stephen Zarsky, who also traded on the information.
That allowed them, prosecutors allege, to avoid more than $768,000 in losses they would have incurred if they had traded the stock after the drug trial results became public. All three then lied about their actions to federal agents, according to the indictment.
"Congressman Collins cheated our market and our justice system in two ways," US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a news conference Wednesday. "First, he tipped his son to confidential corporate information at the expense of regular investors. And then he lied about it to law enforcement to cover it up."
Collins and the other defendants pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court Wednesday afternoon. Each must pay a $500,000 personal recognizance bond.
The 30-page indictment highlights that the congressman received the information about the failed drug trial from the company's CEO and then repeatedly dialed his son while the elder Collins was attending the annual congressional picnic at the White House on June 22, 2017.
At 7:10 p.m. that evening, amid the picnic, Chris Collins responded in an email to the CEO, "Wow. Makes no sense. How are these results even possible???"
One minute later, according to the indictment, Collins began placing phone calls to his son. After failing six times to connect with his son, the congressman reached him on the seventh call and informed him that the drug trial for a multiple sclerosis treatment had failed, the indictment says.
Lawyers for Collins said the congressman would be "completely vindicated."
"We will answer the charges filed against Congressman Collins in court and will mount a vigorous defense to clear his good name," Collins' attorneys, Jonathan Barr and Jonathan New, said in a statement. "It is notable that even the government does not allege that Congressman Collins traded a single share of Innate Therapeutics stock. We are confident he will be completely vindicated and exonerated."
House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday that Collins would be removed from the House Energy and Commerce Committee "until the matter is settled."
"While his guilt or innocence is a question for the courts to settle, the allegations against Rep. Collins demand a prompt and thorough investigation by the House Ethics Committee," Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, said in a statement. "Insider trading is a clear violation of the public trust."
It is relatively rare for prosecutors to indict a sitting elected official, particularly in an election year. In Collins' case, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York carefully weighed when to bring the charges, staying mindful of the upcoming election cycle in November, according to people familiar with the matter.
Justice Department guidelines for federal prosecutors recommend that they avoid taking investigative or prosecutorial steps that could sway voters' decisions, and the controversy over former FBI Director James Comey's public announcements during the 2016 presidential election cycle concerning the investigation of Hillary Clinton's email use have brought even closer scrutiny of such decisions.
Though the charges brought Wednesday don't pertain to Collins' conduct in his capacity as an elected official, Berman suggested in his remarks that Collins' status as a congressman enhanced the hypocrisy of his actions.
"Congressman Collins, who by virtue of his office helps to write the laws of our nation, acted as if the law did not apply to him," Berman said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a parallel complaint Wednesday against the three men that seeks to bar the elder Collins from serving as a director of a public company, as well as prevent him from trading penny stocks.
The House Ethics Committee last October disclosed that it was investigating Collins for potentially violating federal law and House rules regarding insider trading. The outside, non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics began a review of Collins' activity in March 2017 and that July voted to send its findings to the House ethics panel. The panel can formally launch investigations and recommend any sanctions against any lawmaker it determines has broken any rules. The ethics committee announced in the release of the report that it would start a review of Collins.
The report details how Collins met with officials at the National Institutes of Health to discuss the development of a drug made by Innate.
"There is a substantial reason to believe that Representative Collins shared material nonpublic information in the purchase of Innate stock, in violation of House rules, standards of conduct, and federal law," the report said.
The House Ethics Committee declined to comment on the indictment Wednesday.
It's not clear whether the indictment will imperil Collins's re-election bid. The congressman hails from a reliably Republican district in upstate New York and had been considered a safe bet to retain his seat against a little-known Democrat, Nate McMurray, who on Wednesday immediately seized on the news of the indictment to raise money for his campaign.
Despite the charges, however, Collins indicated in the hours following that he plans to pursue re-election, unnerving Republican leaders worried that the news could put yet another GOP seat in danger of flipping to the Democrats.
New York election laws leave little recourse for Republicans to push Collins out of the race and replace him with another candidate, meaning GOP leaders are likely stuck with Collins on the ballot in the November elections.
This story has been updated and will continue to update with additional developments.
