Ordinarily, Pelosi’s stubborn defense of congressional stock trading would be an opportunity for House Republicans to take the high ground on ethics, put their assets in mutual funds or blind trusts and then promise that if they get control of the House in 2022, stock trading by all members will be prohibited. Good luck with that; Republicans in Congress are way too busy trading their own stocks to worry about ethics.
The hypocrisy of Congress is astonishing when you look at the fact that every other federal employee is subject to a criminal statute that prohibits financial conflicts of interest with official duties. It is a crime for a federal officer to participate in a particular government matter, including supporting or opposing a bill in Congress, that has a direct and predictable effect on the federal officer’s financial interest.
Of course, the very people who make the laws — members of Congress, as well as the president and the vice president — are exempt from this law. They are allowed to have financial conflicts of interest with their official duties that for other federal employees are a crime.
Then there is the insider trading problem.
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