---

Report: House members in the know score ‘abnormal’ stock profits
...An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios....

...Despite the GOP’s reputation as the party of the rich, House Republicans fared worse than their Democratic colleagues when it comes to investing, according to the study. The Democratic subsample of lawmakers beat the market by 73 basis points per month, or 9 percent annually, versus 18 basis points per month, or 2 percent annually, for the Republican sample....

Insider trading at the FDA
The SEC has civilly charged an FDA employee under 17(a) and 10(b) with violating his duty of trust and confidence to the FDA and misappropriating drug approval information by using it to make $3.6 million in trading securities. ...

CREW sues for Arne Duncan documents
A key watchdog group issued a legal filing Thursday demanding e-mails and other documents from Education Department Sec. Arne Duncan and his top aides under the Freedom of Information Act relating to the influence of Wall Street short sellers on a controversial new regulation governing for-profit or “career” colleges.

The filing is the latest step in a lawsuit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed in October to compel the release of documents under the law.

After dragging its feet for months – and suddenly facing legal action – the Education Department released almost 2,000 pages of documents in late December, according to CREW’s March 17 filing.

However, the agency did not search for documents from Arne Duncan, his top aides in the Office of the Secretary, or several other top officials. CREW is now demanding in court the Education Department produce documents from those officials.

The documents are important because they could show the extent of involvement by Wall Street short sellers at the top levels of the agency in a bitter fight over strict new regulations of the for-profit education sector....