Congressional Committee Thinks It Shouldn't Have To Answer The SEC's Questions About Insider Trading
from the we're-electable,-not-accountable dept
"Laws are for other people."It's common knowledge that insider trading is illegal. In fact, we have an entire government agency in place to regulate trading and to investigate insider trading allegations. Executives have been sentenced to months (sometimes even years) in plush, well-appointed hellholes for participating in insider trading.
- Too many legislators to count
Members of Congress, however, were exempt from insider trading rules until 2012. An 2011 expose by 60 Minutes let millions of Americans know that members of Congress had plenty of access to market-changing information and were acting on it.
In a rare (ha!) show of self-preservation, a united House full of Congresspersons facing reelection battles passed the STOCK Act, which basically made Congress and its staffers play by the same trading rules as every other American.
In 2013, with Congressional members safely re-elected, the House decided to roll back its previous legislative effort in order to get back into the insider trading business. It tore out the stipulation demanding disclosure of trading activity -- the one thing citizens could use to verify adherence to the "no insider trading" rule -- stating that these disclosures were a "security risk." This sailed through with unanimous consent late on a Thursday afternoon (the end of the Congressional work week) and was signed by the President the following Monday.
Now, Congress is again claiming it doesn't need to submit to laws that govern US citizens and, again, it's doing this to avoid any transparency or accountability being applied to its trading activities.
The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and a top staff member say the panel and its employees are "absolutely immune" from having to comply with subpoenas from a federal regulator in an insider-trading probe.The SEC is investigating a suspicious spike in health insurer trading volumes and prices ahead of a report that announced government payments to insurers would be increased, rather than decreased. This investigation claims that a Green Taureg LLC lobbyist sent the information to a Height Securities LLC analyst ahead of the official government announcement and that House Ways and Means staff director Brian Sutter may have been the originating source.
The committee yesterday responded to U.S. District Court Judge Paul Gardephe's order to explain why it hadn't complied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's requests for documents, phone records and testimony of aide Brian Sutter for more than a year.
The Committee's legal rep has responded by claiming Congress is above the law or, if not above, very definitely adjacent to it, but certainly not within in and subject to federal subpoenas.
Kerry W. Kircher, the top lawyer for the House, said the SEC's request should be dismissed because the information it seeks concerns legislative activities protected by the Constitution, which can't be reviewed by federal judges.Kircher also stated that his client does not and will not (EVER) have time for the SEC's "apply the insider trading rules to everyone" bullshit.
Sutter's connection to the investigation is "tangential" Kircher said, and would also interfere with his work because his schedule is "heavily, and nearly permanently, booked."So, if anyone thought an SEC insider trading probe would bring more accountability to the House, those thoughts may now be dismissed to make room for more cynicism. There's a slim possibility the SEC may extract damning evidence, but it will have to fight its way through a House full of people with no conceivable reason to be compliant. Insider trading was a great Congressional job perk and its uncontested run helped pad the wallets of future lobbyists, board members and consultants. No one really wants to completely end it, but they'd certainly like people to stop talking about it.
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Filed Under: brian sutter, congress, house ways and means committee, insider trading, privilege, sec
Companies: green taureg, heigh securities
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It's a dictatorship.
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The real purpose of Laws
//damn, I'm moving from Skeptical to Cynical rapidly!
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Everyone should use this one...
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here is why they are ALL scumbags...
NOT ONE, even the few who are 'good guys' on this or that particular issue are going to 'embarrass' their fellow scumbags, are they ? ? ?
tells you all you need to know about 'our' (sic) failed gummint...
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Re: Everyone should use this one...
His schedule at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary is guaranteed to be be really, really light.
You're welcome!
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Re: Re: Everyone should use this one...
7AM wake up
7:15AM prisoner count
7:30AM cell inspection
7:45AM get raped in shower
8AM breakfast
...
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Other source of the data
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The Expansion of FT Leavenworth ACT
The Expansion of FT Leavenworth ACT
text: Shall the Federal Prison at Ft Leavenworth, Kansas be massively expanded to hold new blocks of known oath breakers?
impact: will cost big, will essentially level off though, an estimate of how many blocks needed can be determined by PAST DEEDS of officials who broke their oaths. Part of the Labor can be the inmates themselves.
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Re: The Expansion of FT Leavenworth ACT
Yup - they basically just signed themselves up for execution.
Now to perform citizens arrests, file the charges and watch them fall (legally).
No one is above the law, no one.
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Re: Re: The Expansion of FT Leavenworth ACT
$1m per month as a security consultant?
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Re:
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Meanwhile guys like me go to prison on BS conspiracy charges
I spent years fighting and went to prison for it. Little guys like me get stomped on in the name of "fair markets". Not one trade was linked to me at my trial and the Feds just got folks to lie on the stand in exchange for probation.
There is no justice here. Just folks like Preet Bharara making a name for themselves. He and the Feds are running a PR campaign that separated me from my family for years. Of course they are not going to go after congressmen with any real conviction. He will need their help come election time. So when real crimes are committed all we see is ineptitude of the SEC and nothing from the DOJ.
If you want to know the truth about our "justice" system you can read about it here www.inside-story-book.com
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Of course, and it might just be my cynicism popping up, but I'd say the odds of the SEC actually doing a real investigation, one that could actually end up with people being publicly charged for insider trading, is likely zero to zilch. More likely it's just a show and dance, to show that they're 'serious about cracking down on insider trading', and involving the House is just to add that extra bit of 'realism'.
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Re: Re: Re: The Expansion of FT Leavenworth ACT
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DC was founded on a fetid swamp and not much has changed since then.
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what we need is more info on this
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