The media feeding frenzy begins, and of course it’s always nice when a Republican is the target for a change:
Let’s put this in the “the real scandal is what’s legal” file:
Ryan attended a closed meeting with congressional leaders, Bush’s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on September 18, 2008. The purpose of the meeting was to disclose the coming economic meltdown and beg Congress to pass legislation to help collapsing banks. Instead of doing anything to help, Ryan left the meeting and on that very same day Paul Ryan sold shares of stock he owned in several troubled banks and reinvested the proceeds in Goldman Sachs, a bank that the meeting had disclosed was not in trouble.
This kind of trading might be illegal now but was definitely kosher back then when insider trading rules didn’t apply to Congress at all. My guess is that it’s probably fine even under today’s rules, since even though it fits the ordinary language meaning of “insider information,” it doesn’t actually make Ryan an insider to the companies in question in a legal sense. But it’s about as clear an example of a public official trying to use his office to obtain personal benefits as you’re likely to find.
