For a perfect viewpoint into the financial world's next big move, there is no better vantagepoint than the Chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee.
According to WaPo:
The Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative agency, opened its probe late last year after focusing on numerous suspicious trades on Bachus’s annual financial disclosure forms, the individuals said. OCE investigators have notified Bachus that he is under investigation and that they have found probable cause to believe insider-trading violations have occurred.
Investigators were also looking into whether Bachus violated congressional rules that prohibit members of Congress from using their public positions for private gain, according the Washington Post article.
Highlights of the investigation:
. In recent years, Bachus has made numerous trades, some of them coinciding with major policy announcements by the federal government and industries under his congressional oversight, according to a review of his financial disclosure forms by The Washington Post.
. Most of his investments are for less than $10,000, and almost all involve options rather than stock purchases. The options allowed Bachus to buy or sell stocks at certain prices in the future — betting that the value of those stocks will rise or fall.
. A Fidelity brokerage statement Bachus submitted for 2008 shows that he made $30,474 in short-term investments, many of them bought and sold in a matter of days, sometimes during the same day.
. The former member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee made several options bets on railroads. While President George W. Bush’s fiscal stimulus bill was being crafted in summer 2008, Bachus bet that the stock of Burlington Northern Railroad would rise, and he cashed out that July for a $16,588 profit.
. In August, Bachus made the same bet but lost $2,900.
. On Sept. 18, 2008, at the height of the economic meltdown, Bachus participated in a closed-door briefing with then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. According to a book Paulson would later write, the topic of the meeting was the high likelihood of decline across the entire economy if drastic steps were not taken.
. The next day, Sept. 19, Bachus traded “short” options, betting on a broad decline in the nation’s financial markets, and collected a profit of $5,715.
. Also that day, he cashed out options in which he had bet that General Electric stock would rise, and collected a $12,713 profit, before GE’s stock price started to tumble.
Office of Congressional Ethics representatives have declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation. Bachus' spokesperson issued the following statement:
The Office of Congressional Ethics has requested information and I welcome this opportunity to present the facts and set the record straight. -Bachus spokesperson Tim Johnson
Just yesterday, Raúl Grijalva D-AZ wrote here that Eric Cantor's watered-down modification of a tough Senate STOCK Act has
. . . a huge loophole in it that was created especially for his Wall Street friends.
Cantor's loophole-riddled version of the bill is designed specifically to
let lawmakers off the hook who engage in just the kind of illegal behavior Bachus is under investigation for. That's patently unacceptable, and public information about the Bachus investigation should, by all rights, have a chilling effect on Congress' desire to pass Cantor's "wet noodle" version.
It also turns out that Chairman Bachus is one of those witch-hunters, in the proud tradition of Joe McCarthy.
U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus said Thursday he has "some hope" for President Barack Obama but worries that socialists in Congress may be pushing him too far to the left. "Some of these guys I work with, the men and women in Congress, are socialists," he said.
Asked to clarify his comments after the speech, Bachus said 17 members of the U.S. House are socialists. Bachus gave the name of only a U.S. senator, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
My question of the Chairman is this - is it possible that there's a likelihood of high profile Republican felons in Congress?
Throw Them All Out.