Former Fed official Adriana Kugler’s stock trades trigger ethics referral to inspector general

• Former Federal Reserve governor Adriana Kugler stepped down in August.
• A new financial disclosure reveals trades in companies such as Apple and Cava.
• The Office of Government Ethics declined to certify the filing and has referred it for further review.

A newly public financial disclosure filing has put a spotlight on the stock trades of one of the Federal Reserve’s recently departed governors.

Adriana Kugler — who stepped down from her post as the Fed’s governor in August after being appointed in 2023 — filed a financial disclosure form that ethics officials declined to certify and referred to the central bank’s inspector general’s office for review.

The report, which Kugler filed with the US Office of Government Ethics in September, lists trades that she or her spouse repeatedly made in individual company stocks — including Apple, Cava Group, Southwest Airlines, and Caterpillar — that are restricted under ethics rules announced by the Fed in 2021, following trading controversies involving senior policymakers.

These types of ethics reports are a standard requirement for senior officials and are normally certified by agency ethics officers. In Kugler’s case, however, Sean Croston, the deputy associate general counsel, and designated agency ethics official at the Federal Reserve Board, said “matters related to this disclosure were referred earlier this year by the Board’s Ethics Office to the independent Office of Inspector General,” in a comment on Kugler’s public financial disclosure report on October 10, explaining why the OGE had declined certification.

In an earlier report filed in September 2024, Kugler disclosed individual stock trades, and stated they were made by her husband, Ignacio Donoso, an immigration attorney and founder and managing partner of Donoso & Partners in Bethesda, Maryland.

In Kugler’s latest report, she said the trades occurred without her knowledge and, in a 2024 disclosure, reported and divested the holdings at the direction of ethics officials.

Kugler and Donoso did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for a comment.

Her 2025 filing lists individual stock sales of Apple, Southwest Airlines, Caterpillar, and CAVA Group, as well as other purchases made across 2024.

Several of Kugler’s 2024 trades appear to fall under restrictions in Fed ethics policy, which bars officials from trading individual stocks and making trades during “blackout periods,” when Fed officials are barred from trading before major monetary policy decisions are made.

Kugler’s disclosures were referred to the Office of the Inspector General in January of 2025, a Fed official told Business Insider, after additional compliance concerns came to light during ethics training sessions held last fall after Kugler’s 2024 disclosure.

In July 2025, Kugler discussed with officials — including Fed Chair Jerome Powell — the possibility of a waiver from the Fed’s pre-clearance and blackout-period trading restrictions to adjust her portfolio, according to the Fed official. Kugler ultimately did not attend the meeting, which occurred on July 28 and 29, citing personal reasons, the official said. On August 1, she announced her resignation from the Fed, effective August 8.

Kugler also disclosed she received nearly $50,000 in pro bono legal work from Arnold & Porter in her filing.

She returned to her role at Georgetown University on August 11, where she is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy and Economics, according to her biography on Georgetown’s website.