Three Democratic senators asked a federal watchdog on Thursday to investigate whether Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford violated his ethics agreement by delaying the sale of his Republic Airways stock after leaving the airline as chief executive.
Senators Maria Cantwell, Tammy Duckworth and Ed Markey said Bedford may have waited too long to divest, and asked whether he misled Congress when explaining why he had not fully sold his significant stake by Oct. 7, the deadline in his ethics agreement.
At the time of his confirmation, Bedford reported holding Republic stock worth between $6 million and $30 million. He completed the divestiture in February, months after Republic finished a merger with Mesa Air Group on Nov. 25.
That timeline is the core of the complaint. The senators argued that Bedford intentionally held on to his shares until after the merger, saying in their request that he “intentionally held on to his shares until the airline completed a lucrative merger, likely significantly boosting the value of his holdings.”
The issue centers on Republic Airways, the carrier Bedford once led, and whether his handling of the stock created a conflict after he took over the nation’s aviation regulator. The watchdog request now puts the FAA chief under a formal ethics cloud as questions linger over whether the sale should have happened in October, not after the merger and months later in February.
The next step is up to the federal watchdog, which will decide whether Bedford’s delayed divestiture and his explanation to Congress warrant a formal investigation.
