DOJ Flights to Little Rock, and the Deep State Takes on Chris Collins, the First Member of Congress Ever Indicted for Insider Trading

[Early post today; back to normal tomorrow.] THE NEWS TODAY IS MAYBE / MAYBE NOT REAL. Nobody seems to be sure. It is all about a Boeing 757 and Hillary and Bill. • • • A DOJ BOEING 757 LANDED IN LITTLE ROCK. On Friday, Big League Politics stirred up a Twitterfest : "A local radio station in Little Rock, Arkansas, reported a Boeing 757-223 with tail number N119NA had been spotted with Department of Justice employees loading boxes of documents onto the plane on Wednesday. 'People have been asking about our story yesterday about federal agents loading boxes in a Boeing 757 at Little Rock Airport,' said Doc Washburn of Newsradio 102.9 KARN. 'They want to know how we know the boxes contain documents from the Clinton Foundation. We don’t. But we can’t think of anything else it would have been. They also want to know how we knew it was owned by the US Department of Justice. Here’s the proof!' " • Twitter lit up -- some checked the flight path, others found the plane's FAA registration document, and others made the obvious connection to the Clinton Foundation based in Little Rock. One tweet said : "Looking at the info that was passed from a[n] airport employee the tail number checks out as belonging to the Department of Justice." Another tweet gave the site for tracking the flight path of the plane that "shows exactly where it went back to in Virginia. @flightradar24.” • The plane apparently made two flights on consecutive days -- the tweet for that information said : "Yesterday 8/8/18 The @TheJusticeDept had a Boeing 757-223 tail number N119NA in Little Rock, AR. A local radio station reported #DOJ employees were loading boxes of documents into the plane. Important to note @ClintonFdn located there...and it's back today https://www.flightradar24.com/1d713807 7:36 PM - Aug 9, 2018....FlightRadar24 also shows the Boeing 757-223 Registration: N119NA was back again today and shows the flight in playback mode." • Then, another tweet asked : "Any chance you have another source for this flight confirmation? Link here leads to a message saying flight not found." An answer cam back that one tracker site had been taken down. • Another tweet answered : “Update on this aircraft: Today this same DOJ plane went from Richmond back to Little Rock. As it approached it went dark & fell off the radar. Eyes on the ground confirmed the flight landed. It stayed for a few hours & flew back to Richmond. Same flight path on 08/03/2018.” • AND, on Friday, You Tube posted a video at < https://youtu.be/wOE_5Y_nZDY > and followed it with a TODAY NEWS article, also posted Friday. The article said : "An interesting article was posted on a site that talked about a stealth flight into Little Rock, back to Virginia, and that it occurred twice this week. For starters, if it was a stealth flight, then how do we know about it? That’s not so stealth, is it? The flight in question is supposedly a DOJ/FBI 757 and the thought is that this might have something to do with Hillary Clinton.....We really don’t know and will not say one way or the other until we have fact-based evidence of what’s actually going on. If this is a conspiracy or fact is yet to be determined and we are not confirming that it is true or false because the website we found this on is using “sources” as their source of information. Without knowing the sources of the information, we should be wary of what we’re reading and do some research on the topic ourselves before deciding what to believe. TODAY NEWS then quotes the article : "The DOJ/FBI 757 made an additional flights on Thursday as well as a previous flights this week detailed below. The plane left Virginia at 11:56 am and arrived in Little Rock at 1:31 p.m., according to FAA records. The flight returned to Virginia on Thursday as well at approximately 5 p.m. Jumbo jet too. It was reported its first flight this week was Apparently loaded with evidence. 'Yesterday 8/8/18 The @TheJusticeDept had a Boeing 757-223 tail number N119NA in Little Rock, AR. A local radio station reported #DOJ employees were loading boxes of documents into the plane. Important to note @ClintonFdn located there." • The quoted article is from True Pundit, the online site that in early July reported about FBI insiders complaining about Little Rock FBI’s lack of progress on the Clinton Foundation probe which they said was being hampered by a loyalist of Andrew McCabe and James Comey. Perhaps Little Rock has since been removed from the probe. Here is some of True Pundit's July report : "FBI officials in the Little Rock field office in Arkansas are not actively pursuing leads on the Clinton Foundation, according to several FBI insiders who are blowing the whistle on the bureau’s investigative ruse. Everyone and their mother knows the Clinton Foundation is a front for personal and private gain, bending and breaking numerous state and federal laws for decades. Except, apparently, the FBI. Little Rock FBI’s special agent in charge Diane Upchurch has all but smothered the investigation which at one point was focusing on money laundering and other financial-based crimes, FBI officials said. 'There was some momentum but that is gone,' one FBI agent said. 'We made some huge inroads. This thing (Clinton Foundation probe) is on its deathbed.' Upchurch, before taking the head job in Little Rock in 2016 after a James Comey promotion, was a lieutenant of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe in Washington, DC. She served as a section chief (SES) in the Counterterrorism Division for nearly three years. Sources report Upchurch is a McCabe loyalist. McCabe, who was promoted to assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division by then-Director Robert S. Mueller in 2012, was Upchurch’s supervisor. McCabe and Comey have since been fired from the FBI. But their legacy and influence live on.” • It's true that in January, the Justice Department launched a new inquiry into whether or not the Clinton Foundation engaged in anything illegal or any pay-for-play activities while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. The probe was to examine whether the Clintons promised any favors in return for donations to their “charity.” • More reliably, American Thinker's editor Thomas LIfson published an article on Friday about the 757 flight mystery. Lifson said : "A Boeing 757 jet registered to the Department of Justice was spotted at Little Rock Airport, reportedly loading boxes similar to those used for storing evidence, sparking speculation that a new phase in the investigation into the Clinton Foundation, located in the Arkansas capital, is underway....Truepundit.com featured the story and adds speculation that DC HQ is taking over the case from its Little Rock US attorney." Lifson then quotes the above True Pundit article and adds : "I have no way of checking out these rumors, but reliable friends vouch for True Pundit. My assumption all along has been that the master showman Trump is timing revelations for dramatic political effect. We'll just to have wait and see what develops. We already know from the excellent work of Charles Ortel that the Clinton Foundation has violated many laws. There are a couple of ironies. Little Rock's commercial airport is officially named "Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport," at least for now. And the Boeing 757 is the same airplane used by Donald Trump as his private jet ("Trump Force One") before Air Force One became available to him." • You can read Thomas Lifson's full article at < https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/mystery_doj_757_spotted_at_little_rock_airport_sparking_hopes_that_doj_hq_finally_is_moving_against_clinton_foundation.html#ixzz5NsdZbbYY >. You can also read the original flight data and FAA registration info for the plane at < bigleaguepolitics.com/doj-sends-boeing-757-to-little-rock-federal-agents-load-boxes-of-documents/ > or at < https://www.teaparty.org/doj-sends-boeing-757-little-rock-federal-agents-load-boxes-documents-318616/ >. And you can follow the Reddit chain of comments and confirmation of the flight at < https://www.reddit.com/r/greatawakening/comments/95xfi5/can_anyone_confirm_clinton_foundation_fbi/ >. • • • DOJ 757s ASIDE, THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS WE DO KNOW ABOUT HILLARY AND BILL. And none of them are good. Ken Riddell of the Washington Times published a list of Hillary's "Top Ten" seemingly criminal and near-criminal actions in July. Here's a short summary. §§ (1) Hillary had cozy and improper relationship with the mainstream media. CNN contributor and then advisor of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile gave the Clinton campaign advanced notice of a CNN town hall question that she thought may give Mrs. Clinton pause. Hillary’s campaign lauded a New York Times reporter for “teeing up” stories for them, and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos for hammering home their talking points. CNBC’s John Harwood bragged about dogging Donald Trump during a Republican primary debate he moderated. §§ (2) The State Department paid special attention to “Friends of Bill.” After the massive 2010 Haiti earthquake, a senior aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary repeatedly gave special attention to those identified by the abbreviations “FOB” (Friends of Bill) or “WJC VIPs” (William Jefferson Clinton VIPs), referring to her husband, the former President. Emails show Hillary’s State Department prioritized and benefited Bill’s friends in the $10 billion recovery effort. The State Department also polled the popularity of Bill Clinton in Haiti and shared the results with him. [The Haiti government also accuses the Clinton Foundation of pocketing the money it raised to help Haiti recovery efforts.] §§ (3) Hillary argued for “a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders.” Her dream for America looks a lot like the European Union. She reportedly told investors in a paid speech to Brazilian Banco Itau in 2013 : “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, sometime in the future with energy that’s as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” [Good-bye United States. Hello George Soros and UN-led Globalism.] §§ (4) The Clinton campaign was in touch with Department of Justice officials regarding the release of her emails. Brian Fallon, Hillary’s spokesman and former DOJ staffer, appeared to have discussions with sources inside the DOJ about ongoing open records lawsuits requesting access to her emails while serving as secretary of state. In an email from May 2015, Fallon said that “DOJ folks” had “informed” him about the upcoming status conference in one of the lawsuits. §§ (5) The Clinton Camp was tipped off to the release of the Benghazi emails. In April 2015, Clinton campaign Deputy Communications Director Kristina Schake referred to a “tip” from a source regarding when the State Department planned to release Secretary Clinton’s Benghazi emails. Hillary’s lawyer Heather Samuelson followed up on the tip, writing : “Latest: Still aiming for Friday, but potential it gets delayed until early next week because still moving through interagency review process. Will check back tomorrow and keep you posted. Quick update on this -- DOS says the release of the 300 will likely happen on Thurs or Friday. Will keep you posted as I hear anything further on my end. Thx.” [AND, this doesn't even touch on Hillary's inaction that led to Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans being murdered in Benghazi while the entire US diplomatic compound was burned to the ground, or her lying to Congress, or her secret agreement with the Obama White House to falsely blame Benghazi on a video.] §§ (6) Hillary admitted that sometimes her public and private positions differ. In a 2013 speech before the National Multi-Housing Council, she indicated her public positions may differ with her private positions, because politics is an ugly business : “Politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the backroom discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.” [For Hillary, "where we need to be" was in hte White House, no matter what lies and manipulation were required.] §§ (7) Hillary’s spokesman mocked Catholics and evangelicals as “severely backwards.” Hacked emails show Hillary’s campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri and other Clinton allies openly talking about Catholics being “severely backwards” and charging that they don’t know “what the hell they’re talking about.” The April 2011 discussion between Palmieri and John Halpin, a senior fellow at the liberal [Soros] Center for American Progress, mocks media mogul Rupert Murdoch for raising his children in the Catholic Church and said that most “powerful elements” in the conservative movement are all Catholic. [Slander and lies.] §§ (8) Hillary admitted she has a hard time relating to the struggles of the middle class. In a 2014 speech for Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, Mrs. Clinton admitted her riches and public persona lifestyle isolated her from the financial struggles of most of the country, saying her memories of her childhood is how she connects now to everyday Americans. “Obviously, I’m kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy,” Mrs. Clinton said of relating to the middle class. [Need we add that beginning in Arkansas, continuing on to stealing furniture and dishes from the White House to fleecing the world in their pay-for-play, the Clintons have worked hard to amass their fortune, but as President Trump puts it, in a "Crooked Hillary" manner.] §§ (9) Hillary's campaign used Benghazi as a distraction from the email scandal. Her campaign tried to make her email scandal disappear during the Benghazi probe by trying to conflate and confuse the two separate incidents. John Podesta told aides in March 2015 to steer the media’s attention from the email scandal to the House Benghazi investigation, which they felt had already been painted in the media as a Republican witch hunt. §§ (10) The Clinton Team strategized on how to delay releasing emails, knowing it was against the law. After receiving a subpoena for her emails, Clinton insider Phillipe Reines in March 2015 discussed strategies to use as an excuse not to release all of her emails. It appeared to constitute a conscious effort of the Clinton Camp to frustrate and delay a congressional subpoena. Reines said of the emails : “Not flippantly, and maybe just from Nick’s [Merrill, Clinton spokesman] mouth -- but rather than going around on how to release the 55k let’s just be for what’s happening and use this as an excuse. Because we can say even if State has equities, not providing them would put her in legal jeopardy OR we can say happy for them to have it, happy for them to have them as soon as State is comfortable.” • The mainstream ProgDem lapdog media just ignores all of this. They would rather broadcast Fake News meant to destroy President Trump, whose only "crime" was to beat Hillary in November 2016. • • • HILLARY DID SOME OTHER THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT. • There is currently an almost unreported class action lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee and former chair Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, filed in June 2016, that alleges the party showed bias toward Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primary. Lawyers accuse Schultz of “intentional, willful, wanton, and malicious” conduct in violating Article 5, Section 4 of the DNC Charter, which states that that the chair must “exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns.” The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 150 donors to the DNC and Sanders in response to emails posted by WikiLeaks, which the lawyers say proves that the DNC was working against Sanders from the start. The party is accused of fraud, misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty and negligence. The donors want their money back. • WikiLeaks Julian Assange has a longstanding offer of a reward for information on the murder of DNC staff member Seth Rich. Seth Rich is suspected to be the person behind the leak of Hillary Clinton emails. He was shot to death on a Washington street while on the phone to his girlfriend. Seth Rich was shot twice in the back execution style. The body of Rich was found oddly covered in bruises but he still had his watch, cell phone and wallet on him. Assange said : "Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks as a 27-year-old, who works for the DNC and was shot in the back -- murdered -- just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington." Wikileaks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in Rich’s murder. This has added fuel to conspiracy theories that Rich leaked embarrassing emails that were released at the start of the party’s convention, revealing that the party had conspired against Bernie Sanders. • AND, there is the elephant in the room -- the Clinton Foundation, which is under investigation by the FBI [we think]. Congressional inquiries on the function of The Foundation, and whether it engaged in so-called “pay-to-play” transactions in which donors to the Foundation received preferential access to Hillary Clinton’s state Department, are pending. The fact that the Foundation spent a reported 2.9% of its budget on charitable giving, while spending lavishly on travel and entertainment, suggests that the Foundation was/is little more than a the Clinton’s piggy bank. Wikileaks disclosed that the Foundation may have paid for all or a portion of Chelsea Clinton’s $3 million wedding adds credibility to the charge that the Clinton Foundation is nothing more than a money laundering operation, a sham. Critics charge that the Foundation activities would constitute a criminal conspiracy under US laws. • AND, those emails just will not go away. The FBI’s inquiry into hundreds of thousands of emails found on a laptop belonging to former Congressman Anthony Weiner may have been improperly put aside in order to focus on the FBI’s Russia investigation, a DOJ report states. A review of the FBI’s investigations into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server by the DOJ inspector general concluded that federal investigators failed to “take immediate action on the Weiner laptop” due in part to a decision to “prioritize” the investigation into claims that Donald Trump “colluded” with Russia. The FBI leadership waited nearly a month after receiving initial information about the laptop to reopen the investigation and notify Congress about it, the IG report shows. In September 2016, as part of the investigation into Weiner's sex-laced communication with an underage teen, an FBI agent in New York found hundreds of thousands of emails on Weiner’s laptop that were possibly relevant to the Clinton investigation. In December 2017, it was revealed that at least five of the emails stored on Weiner’s laptop were marked “confidential” and involved delicate talks with Middle Eastern leaders and Abedin. • Concerning Benghazi, here is the Washington Times version of what happened : "So here’s the real story : US Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without congressional oversight or permission. Secretary of Stare Hillary Clinton brokered the deal through a private arms dealer....Then some of the shoulder-fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military....US President Barack Hussein Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were now in full panic mode and Amb. Stevens was sent in to retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a “do-or-die” mission, which explains the stand down orders given to multiple commando teams. It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because General Petraeus would not supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then, Barack Hussein Obama threw General Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK’d the BS talking points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton committed treason...Mr. Obama, 2 weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone knew it was not. Further, the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy without congressional approval when Mr. Boehner created the Select Committee, and the Taliban began pushing the Obama administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Private Bergdahl was a pawn...everyone knew and knows he was/is a traitor. So we had a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a wild banshee of a woman that is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the congressional Hearing whom is failed in a run for President of the United States." • The Washington Times asks a very valid question : "Why is Clinton not in Prison?" • • • THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE -- ASK CHRIS COLLINS. Hillary Clinton is not in prison because she is a Progressive Democrat darling being protected by the Deep State at the FBI / DOJ. • Fox News reported the most disturbing news event of the week on Saturday when it said that Republican Representative Chris Collins has suspended his re-election campaign after being indicted on insider trading charges. On Wednesday, Collins said he would not step down and would stay on the ballot for November's midterm election. But, on Saturday, Collins issued statement that read : "Democrats are laser focused on taking back the House, electing Nancy Pelosi Speaker and then launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump. They would like nothing more than to elect an 'Impeach Trump' Democrat in this District, which is something that neither our country or my party can afford." • Collins was named in the indictment announced on Wednesday, along with his son and the father of his son's fiancee. The fraud counts relate to securities of an Australian biotechnology company called Innate Immunotherapeutics, where the 68-year-old congressman served on the board. The indictment states : "Christopher Collins, the defendent, violated the duties he owed to Innate by passing material; nonpublic information regarding the Drug Trial results to his son, Cameron Collins, the defendent, so that [his son] could use that information to make timely trades in Innate stock and tip others. Cameron Collins traded on the inside information and passed it to Stephen Zarsky." The charges include multiple counts of securities fraud, along with one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count each of making false statements. All three defendents pleaded not guilty. On Wednesday, Collins said the charges were "meritless." He repeated that on Saturday, but he said that after discussions with family and friends, that he had decided it was in the best interests of his constituents, the GOP and President Trump for his to suspend the campaign, adding : "I will fill out the remaining few months of my term to assure that our community maintains its vote in Congress to support President Trump’s agenda to create jobs, eliminate regulations, reduce the size of government, address immigration and lower taxes." He added that he will fight the "meritless" charges against him and looked forward to being cleared. • Chris Collins has served New York's 27th District since 2013 and ran unopposed in the Republican primary for what is largely considered a safe Republican seat. • The charges, according to Geoffrey Berman, US attorney for the Southern District of New York, "are a reminder that this is a land of laws and that everyone stands before the bar of justice." In January, President Trump appointed Berman to be interim US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, replacing Preet Bharara....Berman has also served as assistant U.S. Attorney in the SDNY. He was also an associate counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation. Berman, whose SDNY office oversees a federal inquiry into President Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen, was recused from the investigation before FBI agents raided Michael Cohen's offices and home, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The Berman recusal was made by Justice Department officials under Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to a USA TODAY source, who was not authorized to comment publicly. The reasons for his removal weren’t immediately clear; but under DOJ policy, a US Attorney cannot remove him or herself from a case. That decision is made by a senior Justice Department official in consultation with its general counsel’s office, usually when a US attorney has a potential conflict of interest or a question about impartiality may arise. • Will the DOJ recuse every Trump US Attorney appointee -- perhaps also recusing Berman from the Collins case? That would be one way for the Deep State to be sure that no Trump appointee ever interferes with the Deep State agenda of eliminating every Trump ally -- such as Chris Collins, the first member of Congress to announce support for candidate Trump. • What is even more puzzling about the Collins insider trading case is that according to the indictment, Collins specifically got early word that a drug the company developed to treat multiple sclerosis wasn't performing well in a medical trial and passed on the tip to his son in JUNE 2017. BUT, the advocacy group Public Citizen, founded by Ralph Nader, filed a request for an investigation of Collins' stock dealings with the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Securities and Exchange Commission in JANUARY 2017. • • • CBS NEWS SAID IN 2011 THAT ALL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS CAN ENGAGE IN INSIDER TRADING. Congress: Trading stock on inside information? Steve Kroft reports that members of Congress can legally trade stock based on non-public information from Capitol Hill. • Here is the script of the CBS "Insiders" that aired on November 13, 2011. Steve Kroft interviewed Peter Schweizer : "The next national election is now less than a year away and congressmen and Senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they'll need just to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year. Few of them are doing it for the salary and all of them will say they are doing it to serve the public. But there are other benefits: Power, prestige, and the opportunity to become a Washington insider with access to information and connections that no one else has, in an environment of privilege where rules that govern the rest of the country, don't always apply to them. Most former congressmen and Senators manage to leave Washington -- if they ever leave Washington -- with more money in their pockets than they had when they arrived, and as you are about to see, the biggest challenge is often avoiding temptation. Peter Schweizer : 'This is a venture opportunity. This is an opportunity to leverage your position in public service and use that position to enrich yourself, your friends, and your family.' Peter Schweizer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University. A year ago he began working on a book about soft corruption in Washington with a team of eight student researchers, who reviewed financial disclosure records. It became a jumping off point for our own story, and we have independently verified the material we've used. Schweizer says he wanted to know why some congressmen and Senators managed to accumulate significant wealth beyond their salaries, and proved particularly adept at buying and selling stocks. Schweizer : 'There are all sorts of forms of honest grafts that congressmen engage in that allow them to become very, very wealthy. So it's not illegal, but I think it's highly unethical, I think it's highly offensive, and wrong.' Steve Kroft : 'What do you mean honest graft?' Schweizer : 'For example insider trading on the stock market. If you are a member of Congress, those laws are deemed not to apply.' Kroft : 'So congressman get a pass on insider trading?' Schweizer : 'They do. The fact is, if you sit on a healthcare committee and you know that Medicare, for example, is -- is considering not reimbursing for a certain drug that's market moving information. And if you can trade stock on -- off of that information and do so legally, that's a great profit making opportunity. And that sort of behavior goes on.' Kroft : 'Why does Congress get a pass on this?' Schweizer : 'It's really the way the rules have been defined. And the people who make the rules are the political class in Washington. And they've conveniently written them in such a way that they don't apply to themselves.' The buying and selling of stock by corporate insiders who have access to non-public information that could affect the stock price can be a criminal offense, just ask hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam who recently got 11 years in prison for doing it. But, congressional lawmakers have no corporate responsibilities and have long been considered exempt from insider trading laws, even though they have daily access to non-public information and plenty of opportunities to trade on it. Schweizer : 'We know that during the health care debate people were trading health care stocks. We know that during the financial crisis of 2008 they were getting out of the market before the rest of America really knew what was going on.' In mid September 2008 with the Dow Jones Industrial average still above ten thousand, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were holding closed door briefings with congressional leaders, and privately warning them that a global financial meltdown could occur within a few days. One of those attending was Alabama Representative Spencer Bachus, then the ranking Republican member on the House Financial Services Committee and now its chairman. Schweizer : 'These meetings were so sensitive -- that they would actually confiscate cell phones and Blackberries going into those meetings. What we know is that those meetings were held one day and literally the next day Congressman Bachus would engage in buying stock options based on apocalyptic briefings he had the day before from the Fed chairman and treasury secretary. I mean, talk about a stock tip.' While Congressman Bachus was publicly trying to keep the economy from cratering, he was privately betting that it would, buying option funds that would go up in value if the market went down. He would make a variety of trades and profited at a time when most Americans were losing their shirts. Congressman Bachus declined to talk to us, so we went to his office and ran into his Press Secretary Tim Johnson." • CBS later wrote that "the report on 'Insiders' received quite a reaction the week after it aired. Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's office called the report a 'right-wing smear.' Republican Speaker John Boehner's office called his inclusion in the story 'idiotic.' " But, at least 93 members of Congress signed on as cosponsors of the Stock Act, and for the first time the bill was introduced in the Senate. Washington is a town that runs on inside information -- but elected officials should not be able to use that information to pad their own pockets. As Steve Kroft reported, members of Congress and their aides have regular access to powerful political intelligence, and many have made well-timed stock market trades in the very industries they regulate. For now, the practice is perfectly legal, but some say it's time for the law to change." • • • CONGRESS MEMBERS' INSIDER TRADING. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act (Pub.L. 112–105, S. 2038, 126 Stat. 291, enacted April 4, 2012) was passed to combat insider trading. It was signed into law by President Barack Obama on April 4, 2012. • BUT, the Huffington Post reported on Aprl 17, 2013 that : "Swiftly and without fanfare, Congress and President Obama have made it easier for top federal employees to trade on inside information. On Monday, Obama signed into a law a change in the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge, or STOCK Act....The change, which was approved unanimously by Congress last week, means that top federal employees, including staffers on Capital Hill and in the White House, will not have to publicly disclose their financial holdings online. That requirement was part of the original STOCK Act, but its implementation had been delayed again and again by Congress. And now it’s dead. The STOCK Act change does not apply to the President, Vice President, members of Congress or candidates for Congress. Obama and Congress loudly passed the original STOCK Act last year after reports in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, along with academic studies, noted that lawmakers with access to market-moving information were suspiciously lucky in the timing of their stock trades. One widely-cited estimate suggests congressional portfolios outperform the broader market by 12% annually....The rationale for changing the law was that its disclosure requirements created a national security risk, according to a study ordered by Congress and completed by the National Academy of Public Administration. Federal employees’ unions had objected to the law from the start, saying it could put federal staffers at risk. [???]....But it’s not as if the original STOCK Act was likely to fully clamp down on insider trading anyway : It was loaded with loopholes, Yale professor Jonathan Macey noted in 2011 : 'On closer examination, it appears that what Congress really wants is to keep making the big bucks that come from trading on inside information but to trick those outside of the Beltway into believing they are doing something about this corruption.' They’re still at it." • Then, on October 13, 2017, the Washington Post wrote an article on the Stock Act, written by Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. Holman wrote : "When the Stock Act was finally approved in 2012 by a reluctant Congress, it was a widely hailed legislative achievement. The legislation applied the law against insider trading for the first time to Congress itself and mandated an online disclosure system of members' stock trades so that compliance to the law could be monitored. I fully expected that the disclosure system would also reduce stock-trading activity by Congress, especially in industries that members directly oversee, because the conflict of interest would now fall under public scrutiny....The Stock Act has indeed had a dramatic impact on stock-trading activity by Senators, reducing both the overall volume of stock trades and the transaction value of those trades. Remarkably, the number of stock transactions three years before and after passage of the Stock Act has fallen by 68%....It is reasonable to assume the same trend has occurred in the House of Representatives. But subsequent legislation by Congress eliminated the 'searchable, sortable and downloadable' disclosure requirement of stock-trading activity, which makes it much harder to compile a comparable database for the House." AND, said Holman : "Of the Senators who remain active in the stock market, they have a high propensity for trading stocks in businesses they directly oversee from their committees....Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), one of the Senate's more prolific players in the stock market, sits on the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security as well as the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, all the while trading stocks in the health-care and technology industries. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) joins Whitehouse in trading stocks in infrastructure businesses he directly oversees from his position on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. The list goes on of Senators playing in the stock markets of industries directly related to their official oversight roles in Congress." Holman reported that Politico identified about 30% of members of the House and Senate who are currently active in the stock market : "Several of these members play in the markets over which they have some direct legislative responsibility -- in some cases, even sponsoring legislation that could have a direct bearing on their stock investments." • Senior executive branch officials are required to divest themselves of any stocks and other properties that pose a direct conflict of interest with their official duties. Holman says the same ethics standard should apply to Congress -- both to members and senior staff. • • • DEAR READERS, I googled "Congress members indicted for insider trading." There were 10 pages of results -- all about Chris Collins. Why?? Because NO member of Congress has ever been indicted for insider trading -- until Chris Collins. • The third most popular stock owned by members of Congress is bank stock -- which no doubt influenced the financial bailouts -- 57 members have stock in Bank of America. Senator Dianne Feinstein owns between half a million and one million dollars in Bank of America stock. The eighth most popular stock owned by Congress is Wells Fargo, another recipient of government bailouts -- John Kerry, former Massachusetts Senator, owns the most stock in Wells Fargo, somewhere between $350,000 and $765,000 in shares. Kerry, his wife and their companies made heavy investments in healthcare stocks. One week before Congress announced it would limit Medicare reimbursements, Kerry’s wife conveniently ditched her shares in Amgen. After the legislation went public, it caused a 15% drop in Amgen's value. Shortly after Barack Obama was elected to office as a US Senator, he invested $5000 in the speculative company AVI Biopharma. At the time, AVI Biopharma was developing a drug to treat avian bird flu. Two weeks after Obama bought the stock, when bird flu was spreading in Asia, Obama pushed for more federal funding to fight bird flu. And, one of the worst offenders was then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who bought 5,000 shares of VISA stock in 2008 at $44 per share while legislation that would hurt credit card companies was making its way through Congress. Two days later, the stock was trading at $64 and the legislation coincidentally failed to make it to the floor of the House. Nancy Pelosi’s office dismissed the CBS "Insiders" report as a “right-wing smear.” • There is a moral to this story. The ProgDems have a plan that apparently is to 'take down' every possible Trump ally before turning the Deep State guns on the President himself. And, if voter fraud and packing ballot boxes doesn't work to win enough House elections to impeach President Trump, the ProgDem Deep State tries to use any available Deep State agency with criminal powers, turning the agency loose to charge the allies, some of whom just happen to be House members. First, it was General Flynn and Carter Page. Today, it is Chris Collins. Who will be next??