Rep. Collins Thanks CEO for Defending Price in Accidental Email

The CEO of an Australian pharmaceutical company strongly denies that Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., who was picked by President Donald Trump to head the Department of Human Services, was offered a special rate of the firm's stocks, CNN reported.

And Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., is privately applauding him.

According to CNN, Price's decision to purchase shares of Innate Immunotherapeutics, came after learning of the firm from Collins.

The move has sparked ethics concerns about his nomination with Democrats warning of the appearance of insider trading. But both Price and Collins have denied it.

Late Monday, Simon Wilkinson, who heads Innate Immunotherapeutics, emailed CNN to rebut a Wall Street Journal story, which claimed Price had received a "privileged offer" to buy company stocks.

But Collins ended up responding to both Wilkinson and CNN by accidentally hitting 'reply all'  on the email he had been Bcc'd on, the network reported.

"Simon. Yellow journalism. Making the story fit a bias regardless of the facts. Distorted," the email said, in an apparent reference to the WSJ story. "In fact the offer was made available to every US shareholder who had ever participated in any share offering in the US. Interesting how he somehow distorted that."

Collins invests in and sits on the board of Innate Immunotherapeutics. He also said that "many US shareholders" — including his own children — declined to participate "because of the perceived risk."

"Yet he would make the reader assume it was a slam dunk," Collins said criticizing the Journal reporter.

He ended the email with: "Thanks for clarifying. Chris."

Collins later told CNN that he had "replied all by mistake."

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