IS CONGRESS ABOVE THE LAW?
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With a much-anticipated “60 Minutes” report on congressional insider trading set to air this Sunday night, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office has launched a preemptive strike against Stanford University Hoover Fellow and Breitbart News editor Peter Schweizer, the author of the new book, Throw Them All Out, upon which the “60 Minutes” report is said to be based.
During a press conference last week, CBS reporter Steve Kroft sent the Beltway buzzing when he asked Rep. Nancy Pelosi how she and her husband landed a highly lucrative initial public offering (IPO) for Visa credit card stock. Pelosi, who appeared visibly shaken by the questions, attempted to dismiss Kroft’s queries and said her record on credit card reform was second to none.
But now, with the “60 Minutes” story scheduled to air Sunday night, Pelosi’s office has gone on the attack against Schweizer, a New York Times bestselling author, dismissing him as just a “conservative writer.”
Capitol Hill sources close to the story say Pelosi has good reason to fear Schweizer’s investigative reporting. Throw Them All Out, which hits bookshelves nationwide on Tuesday, reportedly contains a powder keg of original investigative information that suggests Pelosi leveraged her insider status to acquire her highly profitable Visa IPO and then used her congressional authority to shield Visa from disadvantageous legislation.
IS CONGRESS ABOVE THE LAW?
Martha Stewart went to jail for it. Hedge fund honcho Raj Rajaratnam was fined $92 million and will go to jail for years for it. But members of Congress can do the same thing -use non-public information to make stock trades — and there’s no law against it. Steve Kroft reports on how America’s lawmakers can legally make tidy profits on information only they know, simply because they won’t pass a law against themselves. The report will be broadcast on Sunday, Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Among the revelations in Kroft’s report:
* Members of Congress have bought stock in companies while laws that could affect those companies were being debated in the House or Senate.
* At least one representative made significant stock purchases the day after he and other members of Congress attended a secret meeting in September 2008, where the Fed chair and the treasury secretary informed them of the imminent global economic meltdown. The meeting was so confidential that cell phones and other digital devices were confiscated before it began.
If senators and representatives are using non-public information to win in the market, it’s all legal says Peter Schweizer, who works for the Hoover Institute, a conservative think tank. He has been examining these issues for some time and has written about them in a book, “Throw them All Out.” “[Insider trading laws] apply to corporate executives, to Americans…If you are a member of Congress, those laws are deemed not to apply,” he tells Kroft. “It’s really the way the rules have been defined…[lawmakers]have conveniently written them in such a way as they don’t apply to themselves,” says Schweizer.
Efforts to make such insider trading off limits to Washington’s lawmakers have never been able to get traction. Read more here. Be sure to tune into 60 Minutes on Sunday. Should be interesting.
Source:CBS
Related: Big Government
