Hawley: Gamestop, Robinhood saga shows 'the fix is in' on Wall Street

close

Video

Gamestop, Robinhood saga shows the 'fix is in': Josh Hawley

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the "fix is in" when it comes to Wall Street, arguing that the Gamestop stock surge shows that hedge funds do not want "real competition" from small investors. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced she is looking into recent activity on Robinhood after the trading platform restricted trading of certain securities Thursday, resulting in multiple lawsuits against the company.

WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO ADDRESS GAMESTOP CONTROVERSY

"We are aware of concerns raised regarding activity on the Robinhood app, including trading related to the GameStop stock," James said in a statement. "We are reviewing this matter."

Robinhood and other trading platforms announced Thursday that they were restricting trading for a handful of securities that have exploded in value this week, including GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry, Tootsie Roll, Trivago, and others. The stock surges were fueled by Reddit users buying stocks that they saw as over-shorted. 

FOX Business' Charlie Gasparino also reported Thursday that the SEC is looking into a potential market manipulation case involving the surge of GameStop stock and the Reddit forum WallStreetBets, where retail investors discussed the massive short squeeze.

Video

Hawley said Friday on "Fox & Friends" that more scrutiny was devoted to this situation than to some of the firms that caused the financial crash in 2008. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY: "What we’ve seen I think with this GameStop meltdown that Wall Street is having now is that these folks at home, these day traders, retail investors, they got more criticism and more scrutiny than the people who single-handedly crashed the entire financial market in 2008, and they got bailed out! The government bailed out all of those people. I mean it really shows you that the fix is in. 

Now, the big hedge funds they don’t want any real competition. They’re fine if these day traders do what they’re told, you know, do what they’re supposed to do, but when they get ideas of their own and they bet against Wall Street? Well my gosh, then they’re a threat, then they need to be shut down.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

I just think this shows you that just like we got this concentration of power, in so many industries, the tech companies, on Wall Street too, the big banks, the big hedge funds, they don’t want the competition, they want to be in control."

FOX Business' Paul Best contributed to this report.