The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that members of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, who are supposed to be overseeing the banking industry, seem to have had other things on their minds: making money for themselves while the stock market tanked.
In this report by Stephen Koff and Sabrina Eaton, we learn that
As financial markets tumbled and the government worked to stave off panic by pumping billions of dollars into banks last fall, several members of Congress who oversee the banking industry were grabbing up or dumping bank stocks.
Anticipating bargains or profits or just trying to unload before the bottom fell out, these members of the House Financial Services Committee or brokers on their behalf were buying and selling stocks including Bank of America and Citigroup -- some of the very corporations their committee would later rap for greed, a Plain Dealer examination of congressional stock market transactions shows.
Which upstanding members of Congress did the Plain Dealer investigation manage to identify?
They name three Democrats and one Republican:
Rep. Charlie Wilson (D) of Ohio
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D) of New York
Rep. Jackie Speier (D) of California
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R) of Florida
While the report doesn't state that there is anything necessarily illegal about the trades these alleged overseers made, it's certainly unseemly (to put it mildly).
"I don't think that any of these people should be owning these types of financial instruments," said Brian Biggins, a Cleveland securities lawyer and former stock brokerage manager. "I'm not saying they shouldn't be in the stock market. But if they're on the banking committee and trading in these kinds of stocks, I don't think that's right."
I'm shocked SHOCKED I tell ya!