Rep. Spencer Bachus Investigated For Insider Trading

According to Bachus's annual financial disclosure form, he has been one of the House's most active stock traders. And was particulary active during the months leading up to the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street approved by Congress. He is being investigated for his stock trades during 2008 and their connection to the bailout. 

[Huffpo] Bachus has been the financial services panel's chairman since January 2011 when Republicans retook control of the House. Before that, as the committee's senior GOP member, he participated in closed-door briefings in September 2008 by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warning that Wall Street and the economy were in danger of a complete meltdown.

Feb. 9, 2012 - The irony of all this is that the day before he was identified as a suspect in the Office of Congresisonal Ethics investigation, the House passed a new law "explicitly prohibiting lawmakers from engaging in insider trading on nonpublic information they learned as officeholders."

Are we to understand that up until February of 2012, there was no statute preventing members of Congress from using their positions and their access to private (financial) information to enrich themselves at the expense of the public? WTF?