(TargetLiberty.org) – A new report on Capitol Hill reveals that several members of Congress in violation of an insider trading law. It seems some of our lawmakers still don’t understand that the laws they make apply to them, too.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act closed a loophole that, amazingly, had existed since insider trading was banned in the US in 1909. For over a century, legislators were allowed to buy and sell shares based on private knowledge of factors that could affect the share price – and, being legislators, they had a lot of that – but anyone else in the country could go to jail for it. In 2012, Congress finally decided there might actually be some hypocrisy involved, and passed the STOCK Act to outlaw it. Unfortunately, they haven’t all got the message.
Insider’s "Conflicted Congress" project rates every member of Congress on their financial conflicts.
We found at least 48 members of Congress and 182 senior-level congressional staffers violated the STOCK Act, designed to prevent corruption.👇https://t.co/Xy8sEl9oyS pic.twitter.com/tfBnjZ8L0O
— Insider (@thisisinsider) December 13, 2021
The report by Business Insider names 114 lawmakers rated as “borderline” in compliance with the STOCK Act, meaning their share trading needs investigation – and 13 rated “danger” because they appear to be in violation of the Act.
On the bright side, it seems congressional insider trading is a bipartisan activity; five Democrats are rated “danger,” including Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), one of the wealthiest members of the Senate.
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