Jen Kiggans represents Virginia's 2nd District. She won the seat in 2022 by beating Elaine Luria, and in November she faces Luria again.

In July, Kiggans posted on social media that Luria "made over $21 million through insider stock trading while serving in Congress," and that Luria "opposes banning members of Congress from trading stocks."

Both halves of that are wrong.

What Luria's disclosures actually show

Members of Congress have to report their stock trades. Luria's filings are public, and American Journal News reported what they show.

Across her four years in office, Luria reported two transactions: one stock sale and one purchase. Her husband reported two more.

That is four transactions total, for a household, over four years. It is not a trading operation.

Her net worth went down

The $21 million figure has to come from somewhere. It is not what her net-worth filings show.

• When Luria joined Congress, she reported a net worth between $3.7 million and $13.6 million
• When she left, she reported between $3.4 million and $12.9 million

Both the floor and the ceiling moved down. Comparing the two filings, that is a potential loss in value of about $720,000.

Kiggans's claim is not an exaggeration of something that happened. Luria left office reporting less than she came in with.

Fox News had to append a note to the same story

Kiggans isn't the only one who has pushed this. Fox News reported in June that Luria's net worth "skyrocketed during her time in office," and later added an editor's note to the piece. The note corrects the story's claim about her Alibaba shares — she sold them in early 2021, not, as the article had said, holding them until she left office — and clarifies the net worth figures: the value "skyrocketed during her term in office before returning to roughly its original value."

Which is the same thing her filings show. It is not $21 million, and it is not insider trading.

Her campaign couldn't name a single instance

On August 14, the New York Times reported the accusation and asked her campaign about it. Kiggans's campaign "did not point to any instances of insider trading, which is illegal, when asked about the allegations."

What it pointed to instead, the Times reported, was two things. That Luria used to oppose a congressional stock trading ban. And that she owns between $5 million and $25 million in NVIDIA stock, which she held while voting for the 2022 CHIPS Act, the law that put tens of billions of dollars into American computer-chip manufacturing. (That is what the Times says she owns now. It does not say what the stake was worth when she cast the vote.)

So: a holding she disclosed, and a vote in the public record. Insider trading means trading on information the public doesn't have. There is no trade here at all. Luria's spokesman called the attacks "lies" and said the bill did not increase the value of her stock.

Owning stock in an industry your vote can move is a real problem. It is the whole reason a trading ban is on the table, and it is a fair thing to run against someone for. Kiggans didn't run that argument. She said Luria made $21 million committing a federal crime.

A campaign can get a number wrong. This is not that. It is an accusation of a crime, levelled at a Navy veteran and former member of Congress, that her own campaign could not back with one example.

The second half of the claim is wrong too

Kiggans also said Luria opposes banning members of Congress from trading stocks.

Luria has been skeptical of a ban in the past. She isn't now. Her campaign website today: "No one should profit off of holding office… I support banning members of Congress and their families from trading individual stocks while holding office."

That is the position Kiggans says she doesn't hold.

This is a pattern, not a slip

Kiggans has a habit of saying things and then declining to answer for them.

She called DOGE cuts "so necessary," and then her district lost at least 70 federal contracts with veteran-owned businesses — and she only said she was working to reverse them after Politico counted the damage.

She voted against capping 299% payday and title loans in the most military-heavy district in America, and when a reporter asked her why eleven times, she wouldn't say.

And when a radio host told the highest-ranking Black man in Congress to get his "cotton-picking hands" off Virginia, Kiggans answered "That's right. Ditto." The NAACP asked for a real apology. She has never given one.

The short version

Jen Kiggans told voters that her opponent made more than $21 million insider trading in Congress. Elaine Luria's public disclosures show two transactions in four years, plus two by her husband, and a net worth that fell by as much as $720,000 between entering and leaving office. Fox News appended a note to a story making a similar claim, clarifying that her net worth returned to roughly its original value. And when the New York Times asked about the insider trading accusation, Kiggans's campaign pointed to no instance of it — only to a stock Luria has disclosed all along, and to a vote in the public record.

Source

Kiggans pushes false $21 million claim about Elaine Luria — Jesse Valentine, American Journal News, August 25, 2026. Photo via American Journal News/AP.