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-Lurid Crime Tales-

Fed Refuses To Release 60 Pages Of Correspondence On Pandemic Trades Scandal

2022-02-11

[ZeroHedge] Having cost the jobs of three top Fed officials, including the Dallas and Boston Fed presidents as well as that of Vice Chair Clarida, one would think that matters relating to (potentially extremely lucrative) insider trading by members of the Federal Reserve should be fully in the public domain. One would be wrong.

In response to a Reuters Freedom of Information Act, the Fed said that there are about 60 pages of correspondence between its ethics officials and policymakers regarding financial transactions conducted during the pandemic year 2020 which have become an extremely sore spot for the Fed, with members of Congress demanding full transparency as to who knew and did what, when. The only problem: nobody is allowed to see them, as the Fed "denied in full” to release the documents, citing exemptions under the information act that it said applied in this case. Exemptions traditionally involve matters of national security, so how exactly alleged insider trading by a bunch of millionaires threatens "US Democracy" is something we would love to understand.

The disclosure of trading by two regional reserve bank presidents during the pandemic led them to resign last fall, and prompted Fed chair Jerome Powell to overhaul Fed ethics rules and request the central bank's inspector general to investigate.

The FOIA responses to Reuters for the first time quantify how much back and forth may have occurred over policymakers’ personal trading in a year when markets first cratered, then rebounded on the basis of both massive federal fiscal stimulus and an aggressive rescue effort by the Fed.

Reuters reports that it had requested release under the information act of any 2020 communication "regarding the propriety of individual financial transactions" exchanged between the Fed's general counsel or ethics staff and members of the Board of Governors, then Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan, or then Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren.

Fed FOIA officer and deputy board secretary Margaret McCloskey Shanks responded to Reuters that staff had identified "approximately 47 pages of information" involving Fed board members and around 13 pages involving either Kaplan or Rosengren. However release of the documents was denied.

"The responsive documents contain predecisional and deliberative information, as well as information that is subject to attorney-client privilege," she wrote. There was, she said, nothing in the documents that was "reasonably segregable" and not exempt from release under FOIA.

Gunita Singh, a staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the FOIA exemption cited by the Fed is meant to "protect agency candor" so U.S. government staff and officials can discuss issues freely as decisions are being made.

The response from Shanks did not detail what current discussions or deliberations warranted withholding the information.

Demands for more disclosure from the Fed about the ethics scandal has been widespread, with public interest groups and elected officials including Elizabeth Warren calling on the central bank to release more details about policymakers' stock trading and the guidance or opinions provided to them by ethics officials.

Posted by:Skidmark

#7 Fed is covering up for politiicans that got rich during the lockdowns.

Posted by: ruprecht 2022-02-11 15:52

#6 Used car salesmen everywhere enjoy a mich higher level of trust and esteem.

Posted by: Besoeker 2022-02-11 14:01

#5 This only deepens distrust of these people.

Posted by: Dale 2022-02-11 12:23

#4 * Broad public awareness... put a stake through the Fed's legitimacy

Posted by: Merrick Ferret 2022-02-11 05:07

#3 how exactly alleged insider trading by a bunch of millionaires threatens "US Democracy" is something we would love to understand

Actually, they're correct: exposing the rot at the heart of our national institutions -- the extreme venality, dishonesty and incompetence of our elites -- will destroy the legitimacy of those institutions.

Polls increasingly show that a very large portion of the public, about half now, does not believe that our elections are fair, that our leaders know what they're doing, or that they have our best interests at heart.

Bria's public awareness that the architects of our nation's monetary policy make fortunes from their insider knowledge of future interest rate movements would put a stake through the Ged's legitimacy.

Just imagine what it would mean for the legitimacy of our democracy's elites were there broad public awareness that those who rushed the trials of the COVID "vaccines" knew they were neither safe nor even effective at stopping transmission, and effective only at reducing illness and death for a small subset comprising the elderly or chronically ill.

That they made (and still make) ridiculous claims which Pfizer, Modeena and J&J themselves refused to make.

That, contrary to law, they suppressed information about and access to known safe and effective alternative treatments, including uncobtroversial and widely-used drugs that are on the WHO's list of essential medicines.

That they again violated EEOC laws as well as the Nuremberg Principles in forcing this experimental gene therapy upon millions of Americans on pain of losing their jobs, or seeing themselves and their children blackballed from normal participation in economic and social life.

Posted by: Merrick Ferret 2022-02-11 05:06

#2 It should be fairly obvious they do not go to Washington to excel at being good public servants and representatives of the people. They go to Washington to become wealthy. Identifying the problem is the easy part. It's the doing something about it that's so very difficult.

Posted by: Besoeker 2022-02-11 04:24

#1 matters of national security

Oh, that's easy. Federal Reserve officers exposed in wrongdoing would damage the image of the Federal Reserve and the US dollar. This must not be allowed. It's a matter of national security.

Who cares if they're guilty? Top officials get to do this kind of corruption, it's not a big deal. What, you think they should be content with their salaries? When they see everyone else around them getting rich? It's an entirely unreasonable attitude.

Posted by: Sheter the Lesser9291 2022-02-11 02:15

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