One of the Democratic Party’s top fundraisers and the co-chairman of the Democratic National Convention host-committee, Duke Energy Corp. CEO Jim Rogers, contributed more than $210,000 to Democrats since 2008 and saw his company receive $230.4 million in federal grants for so-called “green energy” projects.

From The Washington Free Beacon:

Just as Rogers has helped fund Democratic politicians, they, in turn, have helped steer massive amounts of federal funding to Duke Energy. The 2009 stimulus package, for instance, was a boon for the company: Duke received federal grants totaling $230.4 million for a number of “green” energy projects including “smart grid” development and wind energy storage.

According to Recovery.gov, Duke created 196.6 jobs as a result of the grants.

The company also received a $350,000 grant to assist General Motors in the development of the Chevrolet Volt, the poorly selling electric vehicle that the Obama administration has recently proposed subsidizing at a rate of $10,000 per car.

Rogers’ support for the president’s “green” agenda earned him a spot on the short list to become President Obama’s Energy Secretary.

As if that act of crony capitalism weren’t enough, in 2009, Mr. Rogers’s company paid the lobbying firm of the co-chairman of Obama-Biden transition team, John Podesta, and Mr. Podesta’s brother, Tony Podesta, $860,000 to lobby to “support the passage of climate change and energy legislation” and “energy efficiency and clean energy solutions.”   John Podesta was also formerly the president of the left wing Center for American Progress.

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Both the House and Senate have now passed their respective versions of a bill known as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act to ban members of Congress from using private information to enrich their investments.

As the two chambers now hammer out the distinctions between the two bills, one major difference has emerged: whether to require so-called “political intelligence” firms, who scour Congress and leverage high-level contacts with Hill staffers to gather tidbits of valuable nonpublic information that can be sold to investment firms or others, to register as lobbyists.  The Senate version of the bill contains such a provision; the House version does not.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), the person responsible for adding the provision to the Senate version of the STOCK Act, says that requiring political intelligence operatives to register as lobbyists is simply a matter of common sense:

If you seek information from Congress in order to make money, the American people have a right to know your name and who you’re selling that information to.

There’s much at stake in whether or not the eventual STOCK Act will require political intelligence operatives to register as lobbyists. Experts say that the 300 political intelligence firms worldwide comprise a $100 million industry.  Furthermore, many of the 2,000 individuals who make up the political intelligence industry are themselves former Hill staffers or members of Congress.

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Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) support for a bill banning members of Congress from using insider information to enrich themselves is being overshadowed by a report by the Wall Street Journal that the congresswoman’s husband, Stephen Lowey, invested $350,000 in a fund co-founded by Rajat Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs board member facing criminal insider-trading charges.

Rep. Lowey’s husband says his decision to invest $350,000 since 2008 in a fund run by New Silk Route Growth Capital should not reflect negatively on his wife:

Neither Mrs. Lowey nor I know Mr. Gupta, have ever met him or have had any dealings with him at all. It’s not her [Rep. Nita Lowe's] investment. She had nothing to do with it.

Between 2006 and 2011, one of New Silk Route’s co-founders, Parag Saxena, contributed more than $8,000 to Rep. Lowey’s congressional campaign funds.  According to the Wall Street Journal’s report:

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In his New York Times bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer revealed how members of Congress enrich themselves and their relatives using earmarks and insider information.  Now, the Washington Post, following in Schweizer’s footsteps, has conducted a study that found 16 members of Congress have used their power of the purse to benefit companies, colleges, and community groups tied to their relatives.

Image by Washington Post

According to the study, the bipartisan “dirty 16″ deny that their actions were meant to directly benefit themselves or their spouses, parents, or children.  Instead, they claim, they were merely helping organizations and institutions in their congressional districts that just so happen to be connected to their relatives.

But as the investigation reveals, hiring the relative of a member of Congress can bring big bucks for employers.  Among those cited in the Washington Post report were the following:

• Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX): obtained $5.3 million and sought $16.5 million more for the University of Houston where her husband has been employed since 1978 and has seen his salary double since 1994 (a year before Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was elected) to $210,491.  Rep. Lee’s staff ignored repeated requests for comment.

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When Peter Schweizer uncovered evidence of insider trading by Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Spencer Bachus (R-AL), and 60 Minutes reported on it, I was the first person to call for Rep. Bachus to resign.

That was November 14, 2011.

Now, with news that the Office of Congressional Ethics has launched an insider trading investigation of Rep. Bachus, among possible others, I once again call on the Alabama Republican to do the right thing and leave Congress for good.

At the historic moment when the American people were looking to their elected leaders to protect them and their families’ portfolios, Rep. Bachus was busy using nonpublic information to enrich his own portfolio. In the summer and fall of 2008, Spencer Bachus’s position as the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee gave him access to high-level private meetings and conversations with the then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other senior officials. The meetings Bachus was privy to were so secretive that those in attendance were not even allowed to bring cell phones into the meetings so as to prevent sensitive information that could threaten our nation’s financial system from leaking out.

And what did Congressman Bachus do with such trust and responsibility?

From July to November 2008, Bachus executed at least 40 well-timed, highly risky options trades throughout the turbulent period that netted him as much as $50,000 in capital gains. As Americans were losing their life savings, Bachus was padding his. (more…)

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), whose financial transactions while ranking member of the House financial services committee were exposed by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, is now the target of an insider trading inquiry by the Office of Congressional Ethics, according to the Washington Post:

The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee over possible violations of insider-trading laws, according to individuals familiar with the case.

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who holds one of the most influential positions in the House, has been a frequent trader on Capitol Hill, buying stock options while overseeing the nation’s banking and financial services industries.

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.

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On Tuesday, February 7, House Republicans proposed adding a “Pelosi Provision” to the fast-moving insider trading ban known as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act that would prevent members of Congress from landing coveted and lucrative initial public offerings (IPOs), similar to the Visa stock IPO Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi scored that made them a staggering 203% profit.

The Pelosi Visa IPO revelation made headlines when Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer published the evidence in his New York Times bestselling book, Throw Them All Out.  CBS News’s 60 Minutes did a subsequent report based on Schweizer’s book that sparked a media firestorm.

In early 2008, Nancy Pelosi and her real estate developer husband, Paul, were given an opportunity to buy into a Visa IPO.  Despite Rep. Pelosi’s consistent railing against credit card companies, on March 18, 2008, the Pelosis bought between $1 million and $5 million (politicians do not have to report the exact amounts, only ranges) worth of Visa stock at the IPO price of $44 per share. Two days later, the stock price rocketed to $65 per share, yielding a 50% profit. The Pelosis then bought Visa twice more. By their third purchase on June 4, 2008, Visa was worth $85 per share.

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The Washington Post has completed an extensive study of earmarks–the process of slipping pet spending projects into bills–for all 535 members of Congress and has concluded that Rep. Nancy Pelosi added $50 million in earmarks for a light-rail project that runs near a four-story commercial building she and her husband own.

The Post says the revelation was uncovered by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s blockbuster bestseller, Throw Them All Out:

Over the past decade, the House minority leader helped secure $50 million in earmarks toward a light-rail project that provides direct access to San Francisco’s Union Square and Chinatown for neighborhoods south of Market Street. Pelosi’s husband owns a four-story commercial building blocks from Union Square. These earmarks were reported in the book “Throw Them All Out.” A Pelosi spokesman said the project was requested by community leaders and that the new stations on the line will be farther away from the building than those on the existing line.

In response, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s spokesperson, Drew Hammill, had this to say:

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Borrowing a page from Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s investigation of how elected officials funnel taxpayer dollars to projects that increase the value of properties they own, the Washington Post has conducted a study revealing that 33 members of Congress earmarked more than $300 million for projects within two miles of land they own.

After analyzing the holdings of all 535 members of Congress and comparing them to their earmarks for pet projects since 2008, the Washington Post found numerous eye-opening instances of potential self-enrichment at taxpayers’ expense, including:

• Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): obtained a $900,000 earmark to resurface roads where he and his daughter own two homes.  “I didn’t say, ‘Do the street that I live on,” Rep. Thompson protested when the Washington Post confronted him.  “The earmark went to the county.  It had no designation on it whatsoever, and that was it.”
• Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD): secured approximately $4.5 million for an interstate interchange that leads to Rep. Bartlett’s home, his 104-acre farm, and rental properties that earn him $150,000 annually.  “He was being an advocate for what was presented to him as the highest priority,” the congressman’s press secretary Lisa Wright said.  “Coincidentally, this was around two miles from his farm.”
• Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX): bagged $665,000 in taxpayer funds to expand a road 600 feet away from his family’s food processing plant, H&H Foods.  “It helps everybody,” Rep. Hinojosa told the Washington Post.  “The only way it made sense to handle this tremendous population growth and avoid problems for the school buses that go through that intersection was to widen it.”
• Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA): scored $750,000 for a new bridge three blocks away from a 7,000-square-foot building he and his wife own as well as Columbia Basin Paper & Supply, a janitorial supply company he previously owned that is now run by his brother.  “It never crossed my mind,” Rep. Hastings told the Washington Post.  “Every business in Pasco will benefit by that.”
• Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MA): landed a $187,000 earmark to replenish a shoreline 90 miles away from his home district near a beach that, coincidentally, he and his wife own two condominiums by that generate $15,000 in rental income.  Rep. Ruppersberger said questioning the proximity of his properties to the project was “ridiculous.”  “That’s a stretch to say that thing’s going to benefit me.”
• Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA): secured $6.3 million to replenish a beach 900 feet away from a $142,900 cottage he owns.  “It’s absurd to suggest that this benefits me,” Kingston protested to the reporters.  “The beach doesn’t improve the real estate of a house, unless it’s on the beach.  The only thing that changes in value is the beachfront property.”
• Rep. John W. Olver (D-MA): obtained $5.1 million in earmarks to restructure a road 209 feet from Rep. Olver’s 15-acre home and several adjoining properties he and his wife own.  “I had no monetary interest whatsoever in this project,” Rep. Olver said.  “I had nothing to with the design.  I was never notified of any of the hearings.  I had no involvement whatsoever.”
• Rep. Candice S. Miller (R-MI): obtained a $486,000 earmark that helped add a 14-foot bike lane within walking distance of her house.  “People earmark for all kinds of things,” Rep. Miller said when asked about the project.  “I’m pretty proud of this; I think I did what my people wanted.  Should I have told them, ‘We can never have this bike path complete because I happen to live by one section of it’?  They would have thrown me out of office.”
• Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY): secured $7 million in earmarks, a portion of which went to overhaul streets around the corner from a bank where he is director emeritus and owns a $1-$5 million stake in the bank’s holding company and also narrowed the street he lives on to slow traffic.  “Congressman Rogers sees no conflict of interest in helping local community leaders achieve their goals for growth,” the congressman’s chief of staff Michael R. Higdon told the Washington Post.

The Washington Post report also concluded that 16 members of Congress directed taxpayer dollars to “companies, colleges, or community programs where their spouses, children or parents work as salaried employees or serve on boards.”

The practice of earmarks continues to be a source of angst for conservatives and citizens concerned with out-of-control federal spending.  In 2010, a record high 11,230 earmarks accounted for $32 billion in federal spending.

Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s battle to ban members of Congress from using private information to enrich themselves scored a stunning victory on Thursday when the U.S. Senate voted 96-3 to pass the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act.

While the bill was widely hailed as an essential first step to begin repairing Congress’s abysmal approval ratings, three senators voted against the measure outlawing congressional insider trading.

One of the dissenters was Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).  According to Sen. Bingaman, an amendment by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) to the STOCK Act would subject 300,000 federal worker to the bill’s 30 day public disclosure reporting requirements for investments.  Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-AL) aides dispute this figure and say the amendment would only apply to 28,000 workers.  Still, according to the New Mexico Democrat:

I can’t support a bill that places unreasonable and burdensome reporting requirements on over 300,000 federal workers.

Also voting against the STOCK Act was Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK).  Sen. Coburn said his opposition to banning members of Congress from engaging in the kinds of insider trading revealed in Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s New York Times bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, and the much-discussed 60 Minutes investigation his book sparked, is that he is not convinced any such instances of insider trading even exist.

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The Senate’s 96-3 vote to ban members of Congress from using nonpublic information to inform their private investments brought with it important additional amendments that stand to shape the debate next week as the House takes up the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act.

In addition to outlawing members of Congress and their staffs from engaging in insider trading and requiring a 30 day public disclosure rule for all investments, an amendment by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) successfully expanded the STOCK Act to also include the executive branch’s 28,000 workers.  Sen. Shelby said the reason for his amendment , which passed on a 58-41 vote, is simple:

It only seems fair that executive branch officials who are already required to file annual financial reports, also be directed to meet the same additional reporting requirements being imposed on the legislative branch.

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On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) fired a frontal assault on the Obama Administration when he took to the floor of the Senate to offer a series of amendments to the congressional insider trading bill known as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act designed to “bring an end to the revolving door between federal employees and companies lobbying for federal funding or loans,” reads a press release from Sen. Paul’s office.

In his Senate speech, Sen. Paul singled out the Obama Administration’s approval of billions of dollars of so-called green energy loans and grants, 80 percent of which went to companies connected to or owned by President Obama’s fundraisers, supporters, or bundlers:

Currently there are some large donors that have been giving to this Administration who have profited enormously and disproportionately.

This will allow this bill to apply to the Administration, and I don’t believe people who are multimillionaires and billionaires should use the apparatus of government as was used in the loans that were given to Solyndra by someone who is profiting off of their relationship and ties to the President, profiting off of people who used to work for these companies now, who are now employed in the administration and using these connections to get taxpayer money to go to private individuals.

This is wrong and this should stop.

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Democrats controlled all three branches of government for the first two years of President Barack Obama’s presidency and did nothing to advance congressional insider trading reform. Indeed, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) have been cited as among Congress’s worst abusers of using nonpublic information to influence their private stock trades. And until his State of the Union speech last week, President Obama had said nothing publicly about the issue–ever.

But now, in the wake of Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s blockbuster bestselling insider trading expose, Throw Them All Out, and the 60 Minutes report the book sparked, Mr. Obama and his campaign team have begun co-opting the insider trading issue, first in Mr. Obama’s State of the Union speech and now in a new campaign email blasting House Republicans for inaction on the issue and praising the Democratic leadership of Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in the Senate.

The Obama-Biden email, with a subject line titled “This isn’t already illegal? Email from O’camp,” reads:

Right now, members of Congress can make personal investment decisions based on confidential information they get in the course of regulating industries and doing their work.

It’s kind of unbelievable that this isn’t already illegal. President Obama wants to make it illegal once and for all — no one should profit from inside information about the very businesses they’re supposed to be regulating.

Today, the Democratic leadership in the Senate voted to move forward on a bill to extend to Congress the same strict rules that apply to anyone else whose job gives them access to sensitive information about businesses. This legislation is expected to pass the Senate with bipartisan support later this week.

But Republicans in the House have yet to move on it.

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In the wake of Monday’s bipartisan 92-3 Senate vote to take up legislation that would ban members of Congress and their staffs from profiting from the use of nonpublic information when investing, freshman Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) believes the much-discussed STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act contains significant flaws that render the measure a largely symbolic gesture.

“The truth is, there are loopholes in that bill [the STOCK Act] you can drive a truck through,” said Rep. Duffy in an interview with Big Government.

A far better solution, says Rep. Duffy, would be to pass the bill he has introduced known as the RESTRICT (Restoring Ethical Standards, Transparency, and Responsibility in Congressional Trading) Act, which has been endorsed by the person responsible for spearheading insider trading reform, Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out.

The RESTRICT Act’s strength, say supporters, lies in its simplicity: the bill would require all members of Congress to either place their assets in a blind trust or submit to a three-day public disclosure requirement for any and all investments.

Rep. Duffy believes that the RESTRICT Act’s straightforward approach solves at least three significant weaknesses found in the STOCK Act.

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Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s battle against congressional insider trading will enter a critical phase this week as the Senate is set to vote on a bill banning members of Congress from using material, nonpublic information to make private investments.

From USA Today:

Aware that most Americans would like to dump them all, members of Congress hope to regain some sense of trust by subjecting themselves to tougher penalties for insider trading and requiring they disclose stock transactions within 30 days.

A procedural vote Monday would allow the Senate later this week to pass a bill prohibiting members of Congress from using nonpublic information for their own personal benefit or “tipping” others to inside information that they could trade on.

The Senate is considering passage of the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act, which would ban members of Congress and their staffs from engaging in insider trading and would include a 30 day reporting requirement on all investments.  The Senate version of the bill is cosponsored by Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).  Prior to Peter Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out and the 60 Minutes report based on his book, the STOCK Act had only four cosponsors in Congress.   Now, the bill has 230 cosponsors.

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In his weekly message from the White House, President Obama echoed his call from Tuesday’s State of the Union Address decrying Congressional insider trading and demanded that Congress pass a law banning the practice.

Clearly, Obama’s team have read Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s blockbuster book “Throw Them All Out” as revealed by his reference of “campaign bundlers” and their practice of segueing from election-time bag-men to K Street lobbyists as smoothly as an FM disc jockey transitioning from an ABBA song to REO Speedwagon with just a quick mention of the local weather.

What’s most audacious about the president’s call for an end to lobbying by campaign bundlers is that the bulk of Schweizer’s book that deals with the campaign bundler situation focuses on the outrageous behavior of the White House handing out billions of dollars in stimulus funds to their campaign bundlers.  When it comes to being lobbied by bundlers, the Obama White House is Albert Pujols and Congress is Wilson Betemit.  (more…)

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who was the subject of allegations of congressional insider trading, has indicated that he will not seek to extend his term as chair of the House Financial Services Committee after 2012.

Bachus was one of several Capitol Hill leaders from both parties involved in insider trading, according to Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, who raised the issue in his recent book, Throw Them All Out. Subsequently, President Barack Obama called on Congress this week to pass a law banning congressional insider trading–though the book also documented crony capitalism in the Obama administration’s green energy programs.

Bachus could have sought a waiver from the Republicans Party’s self-imposed six-year term limit on committee chairs, which includes time spent leading the minority as ranking members. However, he chose not to do so, though he has indicated that he wishes to play a role in selecting his successor.

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In a recent op-ed by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), the freshman congressman said that while efforts such as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act designed to stop members of Congress were commendable, ultimately, they will not work as intended.

Writing in the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, Rep. Duffy said:

A few months ago, Breitbart News editor and author Peter Schweizer published a book titled Throw Them All Out which suggested that members of Congress were using their influence and access in the legislative process to fatten their investment portfolios.

A 60 Minutes piece followed which brought the issue to national attention and rightly caused Americans to wonder: “Is my representative using the power I’ve entrusted in him for personal gains in the stock market?”

As one of the 87 freshman legislators sent to Washington to clean up the mess, I think we owe it to the American people to do just that: clean up the mess. And that includes the reputation and perception that members of Congress operate above the law. Congress ought to hold itself to a higher standard.

Rep. Duffy says that while he personally has not seen any of his congressional colleagues engage in insider trading, he considers it the better part of reason to remove the possibility for the practice to occur. To accomplish that, writes Rep. Duffy, Congress must pass the bill he recently introduced, the RESTRICT (Restoring Ethical Standards, Transparency and Responsibility in Congressional Trading) Act:

The RESTRICT Act is the only way to stop any real or perceived insider trading by members of Congress.

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In a State of the Union speech devoid of clarity or specifics, President Barack Obama offered but one shining exception: a direct call for members of Congress to send him a bill to ban congressional insider trading.

“Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress and I will sign it tomorrow,” President Obama said to applause. “Let’s limit any elected official from owning stock in industries they impact.”

Since the release of “Throw Them All Out,” Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer has been a one-man battalion fighting for members of Congress to abide by the same insider trading laws that apply to all Americans.   President Obama’s speech Tuesday night is evidence that Schweizer’s battle against congressional insider trading and cronyism has scored a critical victory.

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Live, from Charleston, SC, Breitbart News presents exclusive election night coverage starting tonight at 6:00 PM ET.

From their special election desk at the Tea Party Patriots Conference, Breitbart.TV Editor Larry O’Connor and KABC talk radio host Stephen K. Bannon will host a live broadcast featuring exclusive interviews with political experts, news makers, media personalities, politicians and the Breitbart editorial board including Andrew Breitbart, Dana Loesch, Mike Flynn, Peter Schweizer, Joel Pollak and Alex Marlow.

Watch the broadcast right here at Big Government and join the live chat room moderated by Breitbart Associate Editor Meredith Dake where she will be taking your questions and comments throughout the evening for a truly interactive and unique experience exclusively available to the Breitbart News audience.

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