Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who has been vicious in his attacks on opponents of Obamacare, is accused of insider trading in the days before the October 2008 market crash:
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island also made a flurry of trades in the days after the Paulson-Bernanke meeting with legislators.
At minimum, Whitehouse sold $250,000 in the stocks below between September 18-24, 2008. He may have sold as much as $600,000 in the stock below according to disclosures.
Whitehouse denies that he directed the trading:
Whitehouse spokesman Seth Larson dismissed the book’s accusations, saying the senator is not actively involved in managing the investment fund in question.
Whitehouse “neither directed his financial advisor to undertake any transaction during that time, nor ever took advantage of any exclusive or secret information,” Larson said in an email.
That’s an interesting way to phrase the defense. Regardless of whether Whitehouse “directed” the trades, did he have communications with his financial advisor, either directly or indirectly?
Barry Hinckley, the only declared Republican challenger, is not buying this enormously unlikely coincidence:
“Look at these trades and the timing of them and the massive volume. He is trading between 5 and 20 percent of his net worth I find it implausible that much of someone’s net worth would be traded without someone’s knowledge,” Hinckley told WPRO News.
I don’t think we should jump to conclusions and call Whitehouse names, even though he did so to opponents of Obamacare. But the trades need to be vetted fully to verify whether Whitehouse simply is the luckiest stock trader in America, and who his financial advisor is so we can use him too.
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May the challenger vet the crap out of that (White)horse.
*(White)house
So the defense is that a blind trust reallocated up to 20% of their clients stocks without notifying them? Maybe if the sales were reinvested into one hot climbing stock that might make sense. But that seems too large of an amount.
[…] Legal Insurrection: How Congress Insider Traders Abused The Public’s Trust During The Financial […]
Congressmen have access to exclusive/secret information.
Congressmen cannot be punished for acting on exclusive/secret information.
Ergo, the congressman acted on his exclusive/secret information to his own benefit.
If he wants to convince us otherwise, let him by begin by sponsoring a bill that subjects congressmen to the same insider-trading laws as the rest of us.
Well, Whitehouse is a senator but evidently he’s still well connected.
From connections with my RI roots, I know that he’s slippery and a true democrat and an embarrassment every time he opens his mouth. The only reason that he occupies a Senate seat is that he defeated an even worse POS, the current governor of RI, Chafee.
Ya just gotta luv ’em…
Professor Jacobson,
Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise. You’ve proved yourself to be yet another conservative legal hack hell-bent on shredding the Constitution as you attempt to thwart a virtuous liberal Democratic politician from selflessly helping to broaden the “right to piracy.”
As Gomer Pyle would no doubt say, sir, “Shame, shame, shame.”
LukeHandCool (who, at this time, would only add, G-o-l-l-y and Shazam).
Co-host of the new TV show “Senators’ Squawk Box” … John Kerry.
http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/18/exclusive-documents-the-kerrys-curious-stock-trades/
Alright. I want to run for Senate. My platform is: I will not take a dime in salary. What I intend on doing is all normal senatorial duties as well as I want to start an investment fund. The fund will be called “Capital Insider Trading, INC.” I will use all insider information to manage the fund. Investors (and myself) will financially benefit from the activities of the fund. That way, I save the taxpayer money (my salary), I engage in market capitalism (the investments), and I spread the wealth (all investors in my fund benefit from my insider knowledge).
Seems legitimate 🙂
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[…] WHITEHOUSE: The Luckiest Investor In America? “Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who has been vicious in his attacks on opponents of Obamacare, is […]
While the Congress critters are immune from prosecution, what about those who took the orders or executed the trades? Seems to me that they could be holding the bag for these douches.