From BusinessInsider:
The fact that many members of Congress appear to have traded on non-public information in their personal brokerage accounts during the financial crisis is outrageous.
But since this bombshell news broke on Sunday night, the excuse has been that, however ridiculous it may sound, insider trading is legal for Congress.
This same assertion has been repeated for years, every time someone observes that Congress members do much better in their personal stock trading than average investors do. Unlike average Joes, the pundits explain, Congress has exempted itself from insider-trading laws, so Congress-people are allowed to trade on private information that they gather in the course of their work while other Americans can't.
But at least one law professor argues that this is just not true.
Insider trading is just as illegal for members of Congress as it is for the 300+ million Americans, Indiana Law Professor Donna Nagy argues.
Congress never "exempted" itself from insider trading laws, Nagy says–because Congress has never actually passed a law about insider trading.
By trading on information gathered in the course of their jobs, Nagy says, Congress-people are abusing the public trust and violating a legal duty, just the way any other insider-traders do.
So the Congress people who traded during the financial crisis (and since) should be investigated and, possibly, prosecuted for their behavior.
Read more here. In a sense, however, it is effectively legal for Congress to insider-trade, since any investigation would be conducted by the SEC. That agency's budget is controlled by Congress and its Commissioner subject to Senate approval.
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