The connection between the head of the Small Business Administration and major Trump donor Kelly Loeffler, whose husband, Jeff Sprecher, is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, warrants an investigation for blatant conflicts of interest.

A Bloomberg report on May 3, 2026, found that Loeffler, as well as special envoy Steve Witkoff and 10 other Trump administration officials, held positions in SpaceX or xAI stock valued at between $9.9 million and $43.8 million.

Loeffler’s husband, Sprecher, is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange and the CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

Donald Trump has cherry-picked the best white-collar criminals for his Cabinet. In both of Trump’s terms, the whole Cabinet was for sale.

In Trump’s first term, there was no shortage of couples or families meeting this low bar of acceptance—Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao; the entire Trump family; Betsy DeVos and her brother, Eric Price, head of Blackwater; Loeffler and her husband, who were major Trump donors.

Trump’s second presidential term is the most corrupt in American history, yet the media and average voters cannot even track the insider deals from his wealthy contributors that are being made daily.

And because the Trump regime is based on corruption, insider trading from billionaires continues unchallenged by a powerless, feckless Congress and the financial media.

It may surprise many in the investment community that before ICE took over the NYSE, the Big Board had a pristine reputation as an institution that did not tolerate even a hint of corruption.  As shown in this story on this site, since its formation in 1794, no chairman of the NYSE has even been accused of insider trading, but the toothless ICE-NYSE board of directors, most of whom were appointed by Sprecher, get their six-digit annual paychecks and look at their laps when faced with corruption and ethically messy cases. They would never challenge a conflict-of-interest case involving their chairman’s wife.

The Loeffler-Sprecher Model of Corruption

Trump chose Loeffler to lead the Small Business Administration in February 2025.  Earlier, Trump considered her for the position of Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, but withdrew her from consideration when he discovered she didn’t know much about farm management, driving a tractor, crop management, or feeding cattle.

But we do know that she and her husband, Sprecher, are good at skirting the rules on insider trading.  Kelly was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Trump scheme to steal votes in Georgia while participating in a fake elector scheme for the 2020 election.

Loeffler, a short-term Senator from Georgia, got her “get-out-of-jail-free ” card after the special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, recommended charges against her, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and former GOP Sens. David Perdue, according to the special counsel grand jury report released Sept. 8, 2023. But Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis did not charge the lawmakers when she returned an indictment last month against former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in that sprawling vote-fixing racketeering case. That case was later dropped by Willis.

Loeffler is married to billionaire Jeff Sprecher, who is not an elected official and was never convicted of criminal activity. Still, he is a public figure as CEO and chairman of ICE, a publicly held company, and as NYSE chairman. The NYSE is a self-regulatory organization (a DSRO) charged with self-policing trading on the exchange and trading of all its member firms, publicly traded listed companies, and members. As such, it purports to be the pinnacle of self-regulation and transparency, and the epitome of free-market capitalism.

Then-Senator Loeffler was involved in an insider trading scandal in 2020. At that time, Loeffler was accused of trading on information she received during a confidential briefing about the impact of COVID-19. She and her financial advisors then sold stocks that the virus would hurt. After an investigation, Loeffler and Sprecher were not charged in the insider trading case.

Loeffler met Sprecher when she worked at the ICE, where she was senior vice president of corporate communications, marketing, and investor relations. Sprecher, who is 15 years older than Loeffler, married her in 2004. Based on their history, both love money and power and are not accountable to their shareholders or constituents. According to Bloomberg, the couple’s estimated net worth is $1 billion.

Insider Trading is OK With Loeffler and Sprecher

As a U.S. Senator from Georgia, Loeffler voted in favor of regulations that would benefit her and her husband personally by voting on regulations that were considered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that came before her committee for a vote. The Wall Street Journal and Mother Jones Magazine reporter David Corn reported this story in detail.

Now, as Trump’s Small Business Administration head, she can repeat her transgressions since she learned from her past escapades.

She also called herself the most conservative Republican in the Senate and supported Trump; she voted in line with Trump’s positions 80% of the time. As a Trump acolyte, she supported Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, to build a border wall, and opposed abortion, all COVID-19 prevention measures, gun control, and the right of transgender women to participate in sports.

Loeffler will also do whatever it takes to appease Trump supporters. In this video clip, Loeffler is repeatedly asked who won the 2020 election but cannot say Biden won. She may have changed her response after her Republican handlers gave her the OK. When Trump and his wife contracted COVID, Loeffler Tweeted, “China gave this virus to our President. WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.”

The NYSE Ignores Ethics

As for NYSE chairman Sprecher, the insider trading charges raised issues about conflicts of interest and self-dealing and gave the appearance of impropriety. All this has damaged the reputation of the nation’s public company marketplace and its listed companies. NYSE-listed companies that value transparency and corporate governance should be very concerned when their shares trade on an exchange that tolerates insider trading.

Since the NYSE was founded in 1792, insider trading has been a perennial and severe charge for the exchange’s Compliance Department. However, the Compliance Department looked the other way when Sprecher was charged.

The NYSE is a Designated Self-Regulatory Organization (DSRO) and can investigate and punish member firms and their top executives without SEC approval. As a publicly traded company now owned by ICE, the NYSE must comply with the same standards it applies to its own listed companies.

According to the exchange’s own rules, Sprecher violated  the following:

• NYSE Rule 2010. Standards of Commercial Honor and Principles of Trade; and,
• NYSE Rule 303A.10 Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, including its conflict-of-interest provisions and insider trading rules, says explicitly, “The listed company should proactively promote compliance with laws, rules, and regulations, including insider trading laws. Insider trading is unethical and illegal and should be dealt with decisively.”

The US Justice Department dismissed the couple’s insider trading charges, citing SEC Rule b5-1. This rule allows company insiders to sell a predetermined number of shares at a predetermined time.

The NYSE Board also can reprimand Sprecher, but it was publicly silent when the insider trading charges were announced. Maybe that is because Sprecher, as chairman, also controls the NYSE board and the parent company (ICE) that owns exchanges worldwide. If they choose to use it, the board also has the authority to punish or remove Sprecher. But they proved too frail to take any action.

Sprecher and Loeffler’s actions raise questions about their use of non-public information obtained from federal sources and their shady personal motives. The NYSE has had many insider trading scandals in its history and controversial decisions to award top executives, such as former NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso, a huge $188 million payoff upon retirement.

As Trump sycophants and large donors, this couple should be on the radar screens of public companies listed on the NYSE, the media, and voters.

History is repeating itself under Trump’s second term, a further sign that American political ethics have decayed, as his corrupt regime pushes for less regulation and less personal accountability among his appointees. This is exemplified by Loeffler and Sprecher, both of whom are unrepentant repeat offenders.

It’s also a fair question for average Americans to ask: Why would billionaires continue to violate ethical standards and engage in insider trading?  The answer is that billionaires in the Trump circle are addicted to money. They don’t care where it comes from, who it is taken from, and how it disadvantages others.

That’s why it’s laughable that Trump today announced that he is imposing tariffs on 60 countries because he claims they engage in forced labor.  Trump has zero concern for forced labor victims, just as he employed undocumented workers on his construction projects. It’s perverse when the Trump administration focuses on forced labor in 60 nations, when its own Labor Department doesn’t enforce labor violations against American citizens.

Where Is the Financial Media?

One of the most profound changes in financial journalism since Trump’s first term is that most outlets don’t even bother to report on Trump’s corruption. Part of this is due to weak editors. The other part is exemplified by what Trump supporters and billionaires are doing to CBS and the Washington Post.

This concerted effort to control major news outlets, starve NPR, intimidate reporters, control the Fed, and push crypto, online betting, prediction markets, and ways to facilitate money laundering is all part of the right-wing’s American coup.

In an interview, a Bloomberg reporter was asked about Trump’s ongoing violation of the Emoluments Clause, which was obvious during his first term, when he directed that political events be held at the hotel he owned, the former National Post Office. The Bloomberg reporter answered that reporters did not even report on violations of the Emoluments Clause because such violations were so common under the Trump regime.

Since then, the financial media continues to report that cryptocurrency is an “asset class” and an “investment”, even though it does not meet the definitions of either. Ask any financial reporter when crypto last paid a dividend. Answer: Never.

So, it’s no surprise that the real meaning of crypto is to avoid taxes, undermine the Federal Reserve, facilitate gambling, and money laundering.  That explains why the Trump regime, including his sons and special Envoy Witkoff, stands to make huge returns on a money substitute that will undermine the U.S. financial system.

Add that to Trump’s attacks on the traditional Federal Reserve System, Jerome Powell, encouraging the prediction markets that are nothing more than another gambling venue, and the expansion of online betting.  All this occurs as the gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99% gets wider daily.

Trump has also received a temporary stay from the IRS investigation into his companies for IRS violations, from his hand-picked former attorney, who is now heading the Justice Department.  Some intrepid reporter should interview Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to 15 counts ranging from grand larceny to tax fraud to falsifying business records. Weisselberg spent five months in prison and received five years’ probation in exchange for testifying against his former co-defendant and longtime employer, the Trump Organization.

The reporter can now ask Weisselberg why the IRS cannot pursue Trump for tax violations if his accountant testified that he committed them.

As Trump has said, “Let the looting begin.”

Even worse, what happens when this top executive is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, the symbol of American capitalism, and the world’s best well-known stock exchange?

That’s the huge problem facing the NYSE now and the exchange’s response could devastate its credibility.  This insider trading problem also raises serious questions related to investor confidence, corporate governance, politics, greed, regulated capitalism, and securities law, all in one place.

Even worse, it also raises problems about whether the corporate ownership of the NYSE will be less objective about self-investigation than when the NYSE was owned by its members.

Sprecher Case Raises Huge Corporate Governance Problems

This quagmire also makes it a huge corporate governance case study involving the world’s top stock exchange and the huge corporation that owns it, the publicly-traded Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE-ICE), whose chairman and CEO, Jeff Sprecher, was named in an insider trading scheme involving his wife, Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler.  The Atlanta, Georgia couple is worth an estimated $500 million to $1 billion.

The stakes, personalities, and clash of money and political and executive power make this a great case study in how modern American corporate capitalism and self-regulation work at the highest levels.

Second, this situation raises questions about whether the US Justice Department, under Trump appointee Bill Barr, conducted a full and fair investigation.

Third, there is the issue of Sprecher’s role as NYSE chairman.  The NYSE is a designated self-regulatory organization (DSRO).  This means it investigates itself and does not need SEC approval to conduct investigations of its listed companies and their top officers. Self-regulation works some of the time, but it is stressed beyond its limits when the people involved are the business’ CEO and Chairman.

It’s even more complicated because Loeffler is involved in a tight Senate race in Georgia that will determine whether the Democrats get control of the US Senate at the same time the Dems have control over the US House of Representatives and the Presidency.

This means the Republicans want this issue to die, while the Democrats, especially those involved in the Georgia Senate race, want to keep this important issue alive.

Is it all about crony capitalism or, is this a legitimate trading situation that gives insight into how very wealthy people manage their money?

(To see the details about the trading involved and how the trading discrepancies, see the article here on this site.)

The Insider Trading Escape Clause

The Loeffler-Sprecher insider trading case was dismissed because the power couple was covered by an SEC Rule.  It also helps that they are major Republican donors. Loeffler also is a die-hard Trump supporter who cannot admit that Biden won the election. See her deny it repeatedly in this video. 

Both Sprecher and Loeffler have denied wrongdoing. The couple contends their stock sales were part of an SEC 10b5-1 plan and that they had no personal involvement in the actual individual trading decisions.

According to attorney Patrick Daugherty, senior SEC partner at the Chicago law firm of

Foley & Lardner LLP,  this SEC Rule says that “if you are a corporate insider, you can enter into a plan that will allow for shares to be sold at stated intervals in dollar amounts, according to an algorithm with the trades done in a certain way.  This means the corporate executive takes themselves out of making the actual timing decisions about when to buy or sell.  They give control to an outside advisor or brokerage firm that is not communicating with them.

“If you do it the right way, the trades can get done even when the executive is in charge of material non-public information, so they can say the buy or sell plan was set up in advance and did not rely on any trading information that was provided by the executive,” Daugherty said.

This is not the first time Rule 10b5-1 has come under scrutiny.  The outgoing SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said this rule needs to be reformed.

In a CNBC interview on Nov. 2020, outgoing SEC Chairman Jay Clayton cited the problems with the 10b5-1 trading rule because it can look too much like insider trading.

In the interview, he advocated a “cooling off period” of up to six months when company executives could sell shares using a pre-arranged, blind trading plan when he appeared before a Senate hearing. If this happened, Clayton said it would “give people greater confidence that you haven’t tried to time the market.” He called it part of “good corporate hygiene” to eliminate the appearance of impropriety, an issue that is very obvious in the Sprecher-Loeffler insider trading case.

What’s the NYSE Doing About Sprecher? 

As the world’s best-recognized stock exchange and the symbol of American capitalism, the NYSE attracts the attention of many corporate governance experts. The key issue is whether the NYSE can investigate itself and its own chairman Sprecher.

The NYSE is a Self Regulatory Organization, which means it does not need SEC approval to undertake investigations of its own listed companies and its officers. Sprecher is not only the NYSE chairman, but he is also the CEO and Chairman of the ICE which owns the NYSE.

To anyone concerned about corporate ethics, conflicts-of-interest, corporate governance, appearances of impropriety, regulated capitalism, and plain-old fair play,  Sprecher’s executive role in an insider trading charge alone, even when he was exonerated, is the equivalent of being sucked into quicksand or getting a lethal dose of radiation.

This is why the case has attracted the attention of Common Cause, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, and other elected officials.

It also is not the first time the NYSE has attracted political scrutiny and been accused of having a double standard, especially as it applied to disclosing NYSE executive compensation and other areas of transparency that applied to its member firms.

While the NYSE staff can make some claims about not wanting to conduct an investigation of Sprecher and his insider trading charges (aka job preservation), the independent directors on the NYSE’s board should take actions that protect the NYSE’s reputation for all American investors.

History shows the NYSE has made big mistakes, which is why public directors were added in the first place.

In the late-1930s, the nation was in the Great Depression and the events in Europe foreshadowed World War II, the former chairman of the NYSE, Richard Whitney (who served as NYSE president from 1930-1935), was considered one of the most arrogant foes of federal securities regulation.

Writing in The House of Morgan, author Ron Chernow recounts how Whitney “personified the smug arrogance of the ancien regime on Wall Street. When he (Whitney) testified

about securities reform before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee in 1932, he lectured the senators on the need for a senatorial pay cut. Opposing creation of the SEC, he (Whitney) told New York Senator Ferdinand Pecora’s investigators, ‘You gentlemen are making a great mistake, The (NYSE) Exchange is a perfect institution.’”

At this time, the public had lost confidence in the banks due to mismanagement and the self-dealing of top executives. President Roosevelt urged Pecora to pressure the bankers in public hearings. Like the NYSE today, if banks were worried about the hearings destroying confidence, Roosevelt said, they “should have thought of that when they did the things that are being exposed now,” according to the Smithsonian magazine. 

Whitney continued to oppose any reform, until eventually SEC Chairman William O. Douglas, who succeeded Joseph P. Kennedy as the first SEC chairman, reached his breaking point. In the fall of 1937, Douglas told NYSE leaders: “The job of the regulation’s got to be done. It isn’t being done now, and, damn it, you’re going to do it or we are.”

With the New Deal steamroller bearing down, NYSE Chairman Charles R. Gay became convinced that this SEC chairman was serious. Gay did what any exchange executive did: He appointed a committee to study reform. In January 1938, the committee recommended: “a complete revamping” of the NYSE, including having a full-time paid president, professional staff, and non-member governors.

It was in that atmosphere that public governors were installed at the NYSE. The role of public governors was reinforced in 1975 when regulators again mandated a public orientation towards protecting the investing community.

Sprecher’s Insider Trading Charge Requires An Outside Investigator 

Securities law is arcane for a few reasons: it creates exclusivity, even among top lawyers; it often protects capital and the wealthy; it provides huge opportunities for legal maneuvering.

All this makes self-regulation suspect.  The responsibility for monitoring the activities of the nation’s eight securities exchanges is under the jurisdiction of the SEC’s Division of Market Regulation. Under the current system of the exchange as a DSRO, the SEC merely signs off on an exchange’s plans to enforce its own rules and regulations affecting trading practices and regulations.

But because exchanges have a unique status in the regulatory landscape, they are free to pursue infractions against individual firms and brokers but are held unaccountable in others, including their own personnel policy and compensation.

This is the blind spot in the SEC’s regulatory perspective.

According to the agency’s 1991 Annual report, the SEC Division of Market Regulation oversaw the activities of the nation’s eight stock exchanges, 8,600 broker-dealers, the OTC markets, and 15 clearing agencies.

Under the SEC’s full disclosure system, administered by the SEC Division of Corporate Finance, the system is supposed to work “to provide investors with material information, foster investor confidence, contribute to the maintenance of fair and orderly markets, facilitate capital formation, and inhibit fraud in the public offering, trading, and voting and tendering of securities.”

The Sprecher situation raises whether real disclosure is a reality or just a smokescreen. The individual investor’s best hope is with the very few NYSE’s independent board members. They may, and it is a big “may,” have the guts to make a difference.

In the NYSE’s own Corporate Governance Guide, the first page lists some lofty goals, including:

“Establish the appropriate “tone at the top” to actively cultivate
a corporate culture that gives high priority to ethical standards,
principles of fair dealing, professionalism, integrity, full
compliance with legal requirements, and ethically sound strategic goals.”

It’s clear Sprecher has violated the first two lines of this statement.  Plus, top executive officers at most of the NYSE-listed companies would be fired for violating any of the goals listed in this single sentence.

So what is the NYSE board going to do?  Defend the wealthiest guy in the room or strike a blow for the benefit of average investors?

But, that not what happened when Jeff Sprecher, founder, Chairman, and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE) who is also the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, was charged by the U.S. Justice Department and SEC, with insider trading.

When the chairman of the NYSE is tainted in an insider trading scandal, he should be forced to resign.

And, to make matters worse, Sprecher’s wife is Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler. She also was charged with passing along information she received as part of a confidential security Senate briefing on the impact of the COVID virus.

Loeffler, 49, is involved in a tight Senate run-off race in Georgia against the Democratic candidate, Rev. Raphael Warnock, that will determine whether the Democrats or Republicans control the Senate after Biden assumes office. The run-off election will be held on Jan. 5, 2021.

The Bill Barr Justice Department, no stranger to being used for political purposes, dropped the insider trading charges against Loeffler and three other senators in May 2020.

Then, the financial press ignored the event.

But the story was not over.

Sprecher, age 65, is Chairman and CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a Fortune 500 company. He has been Chairman of ICE since 2000.

The fact that Sprecher was named in an insider trading scheme by the SEC, the ultimate compliance department of the NYSE, shows how serious the charges are and why this historic event should be a significant corporate governance and P.R. problem for the NYSE, the world’s premier stock exchange, and the symbol of American capitalism.

The Accusations Against Sprecher and Loeffler

In the Justice Department charges against the couple, the agency said Loeffler and Sprecher “sold millions of dollar’s worth of stock from late January through mid-February (2020), including transactions in shares later affected by the global pandemic,” according to Reuters.

The Atlanta, Georgia couple is worth at least $500 million. Loeffler is now named the wealthiest US Senator.

Both Sprecher and Loeffler have denied wrongdoing. In a terse, 179-word press release issued March 20, 2020, the ICE said the trades did not involve any ICE securities and “were executed by their financial advisors without Mr. Sprecher’s or Senator Loeffler’s input or direction.” That’s it. They claim the advisors made the trades, and that they were in compliance with SEC Rule 10b5-1.

The nuances of Rule b5-1 prevented the SEC from charging the couple, there were two other problems related to the trades:

• The perception of impropriety from the NYSE Chairman’s actions. The NYSE is the symbol of American capitalism and the most recognized exchange in the world. How can its exchange chairman even give the impression he is using esoteric information, combined with the sale of his own company’s (ICE) stock to make money?
• The corporate PR statement from ICE does not exactly match the facts as to the sale of ICE stock by the couple.

Here are the Details

A report in The Daily Beast said that on March 19, 2020, Loeffler sold millions of dollars in stock within days of attending a February 24 Trump administration briefing on the  COVID virus.

On the same day as the Senate Health Committee’s private session on the COVID virus, Loeffler reported a sale of stock owned jointly with Sprecher.

“In total, Loeffler and her husband conducted 29 stock transactions in late February. Perhaps the one that most drew attention was buying between $100,000 and $250,000 in Citrix’s technology company, which offers remote-working software. The software has become popular as people have transitioned to working from home during the pandemic, according to VOX.

Loeffler challenged the insider trading allegations in a March 20 tweet, saying that “neither she nor her husband makes decisions about her portfolio.”

But that story changed in early February when the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Loeffler had sold off $18.7 million in stock in Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), where she formerly was an executive. “Those transactions — though large in value — don’t necessarily have an evident connection to the pandemic. But they drew scrutiny because, as the New York Times reported, they hinted at an unusual compensation scheme from her former employer,” VOX said.

In a separate account, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution also found “the largest transactions in the SEC charges — and the most politically problematic — involve $18.7 million in sales of Intercontinental Exchange stock in three separate deals dated Feb. 26 and March 11, 2020. Loeffler is a former executive with ICE, and her husband, Jeff Sprecher, is the CEO of the company, which owns the New York Stock Exchange among other financial marketplaces.

“During the same period reflected on reports, the couple also sold shares in retail stores such as Lululemon and T.J. Maxx and invested in a company that makes COVID-19 protective garments. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution got the first look at these reports, covering mid-February through mid-March and shedding new light on Loeffler’s financial transactions during the pandemic. Previous reports — which have put Loeffler in the national spotlight — covered her trading during the first six weeks of 2020.”

Here  Is Why This is a Problem for the NYSE

The CEO and Chairmen of publicly-traded companies are not supposed to attract the SEC’s attention, let alone be charged with the severe violation of insider trading.

Sprecher himself violates a few NYSE rules.

• NYSE Rule 2010. Standards of Commercial Honor and Principles of Trade states: “A member or member organization, in the conduct of its business, shall observe high standards of commercial honor and just and equitable principles of trade.”
• NYSE Rule 303A.10 Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. The commentary for this Rule says: “No code of business conduct and ethics can replace the thoughtful behavior of an ethical director, officer or employee. However, such a code can focus the board and management on areas of ethical risk, provide guidance to personnel to help them recognize and deal with ethical issues, provide mechanisms to report unethical conduct, and help to foster a culture of honesty and accountability.
• Under this same Rule, the NYSE says: “Conflicts of interest. A “conflict of interest” occurs when an individual’s private interest interferes in any way – or even appears to interfere – with the interests of the corporation as a whole. A conflict situation can arise when an employee, officer, or director takes actions or has interests that may make it difficult to perform his or her company work objectively and effectively. Conflicts of interest also arise when an employee, officer or director, or a member of his or her family, receives improper personal benefits as a result of his or her position in the company.”
• This same Rule covers insider trading and says: “compliance with laws, rules, and regulations (including insider trading laws). The listed company should proactively promote compliance with laws, rules, and regulations, including insider trading laws. Insider trading is both unethical and illegal, and should be dealt with decisively.”
• The NYSE is a Designated Self-Regulatory Organization (DSRO), which regulates itself with almost no interference from the SEC, except in extreme circumstances.  How secure is the NYSE’s self-surveillance system be when its Chairman is charged with insider trading?
• What role did the millions in Republican contributions play in the treatment the SEC gave Sprecher and his wife, Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican?

Too Many Coincidences 

The insider trading charges against Loeffler were dropped by the Republican-controlled Senate Ethics Committee and the SEC, headed by Jay Clayton, a Trump appointee. Clayton said he would leave the SEC in December 2020. 

During Clayton’s tenure, NPR reported that the SEC brought just 32 insider-trading enforcement actions last year, the fewest since 1996. Loeffler, Sprecher, and a few other Senators have escaped this insider trading enforcement net.

In a related SEC investigation into insider trading based on the same confidential security briefing Loeffler attended on the COVID crisis, Sen. Richard Burr (Republican-North Carolina) resigned from his post as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of a separate COVID insider trading scheme.

Loeffler Has Political Problems, Not Financial Ones

Sprecher’s wife, Kelly Loeffler, is in a heated election against a Democratic candidate, Raphael Warnock, in a very politically-charged campaign. In her campaign, Loeffler said of Warnock, her Democratic opponent: “He has supported Marxist ideas. He has embraced communists,” she told a mask-optional crowd indoors here on a sunny day, drawing boos.

“Warnock responded Thursday, telling reporters that Loeffler “sits down for interviews with known white supremacists, and she gleefully accepts the endorsement of a candidate who traffics in the QAnon conspiracy that is rife with hatred and bigotry,” according to NBC News.

As the husband of a political candidate in the Trump era, it’s appropriate to ask how any of these charges, regardless of their validity, reflect the opinions and behavior of Sprecher? Is Sprecher a QAnon follower, or is he sympathetic to white supremacists? Are these even questions the CEO of a Fortune 500 company should even be asked?

Remember Martha Stewart: Another CEO Convicted of Insider Trading?

The Sprecher-Loeffler insider trading charges also bring back memories of the SEC’s insider trading case involving Martha Stewart, then Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc.

In that case, the SEC found that Stewart committed illegal insider trading when she sold stock in a biopharmaceutical company, ImClone Systems, Inc., on Dec. 27, 2001, after receiving an unlawful tip from her stockbroker. Both were indicted and convicted.

At that time, Stephen M. Cutler, the SEC’s Director of Enforcement, said: “It is fundamentally unfair for someone to have an edge on the market just because she has a stockbroker who is willing to break the rules and give her an illegal tip. It’s worse still when the individual engaging in insider trading is the Chairman and CEO of a public company.”

The NYSE’S Previous Problem With A Bad Executive Officer

Charges of financial misconduct and other trading irregularities are rare at the NYSE, but they have happened before and in very public ways.

In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with Richard Whitney, Chairman of the  NYSE. At that meeting, Roosevelt told of the need for “moral reform of Wall Street,”

including the need for the NYSE to adopt a code of ethics that could be adopted by the nation’s other stock exchanges. Whitney was a Harvard graduate, had a blue-blood ancestry, and was a senior member of JP Morgan.

Unfortunately, after that meeting, Whitney showed he was not concerned about the “moral reform of Wall Street.”  In 1938, Whitney was “exposed as the embezzler of funds entrusted to him by the stock exchange and the New York Yacht Club, of which he was treasurer. He also misappropriated funds from his father‐in‐law’s estate. Then, the one‐time hero of Wall Street was sent to Sing Sing Prison,” according to this article in the New York Times.

Those are the type of problems Loeffler’s and Sprecher’s insider trading problems raise.

It also raises the conflict-of-interest and crony capitalism problems that are embedded in the entire Trump administration.

Rich corporate and individual donors who deal with the Trump administration by making multi-million-dollar contributions expect something in exchange. There is nothing altruistic in Trump’s world. All the quid pro quo donations are being made in the open.

Sprecher Should Resign from Intercontinental

Sprecher is Chairman of a public company that owns the NYSE, the world’s pre-eminent stock exchange, where “a man’s word is his bond.” People have been fired there for even the appearance of impropriety, so why does Sprecher still have his job?

Worse, what’s the connection between his million-dollar contributions to the Republican Party in the Trump era, and what did he expect in return for making those contributions?

Oddly, in the 2020 ICE annual report, the Chairman’s message signed by Sprecher says: “At our core, we bring transparency to global markets. Transparency drives greater efficiency, encourages broader participation, and levels the playing field. Transparency has the power to transform markets, something we’ve seen again and again as our company had grown since our founding 20 years ago.”

Transparency is excellent, as long as it is visible. 

Sprecher doesn’t believe in transparency, at least as far as his behavior is concerned, and in what he expects to receive in exchange for his large personal political donations to Republican candidates.

Sprecher also built his company, ICE, as a “monetization” machine. For those who aren’t familiar with monetization, it’s the process of charging for anything that was free or too cheap before and, in the exchange business, that includes trading and mortgage data and all forms of clearing processing and any new revenue centers that can be created from software fees.

The main purpose of selling data is to give top tier traders an edge, or advantage, against other traders who don’t get the data or don’t get it fast enough. This mindset also includes information that others do not yet have.  This is the logical link to insider trading.

It is impossible to think that the CEO who is now worth about $500 million does not know the benefit of preferential information and how that information can be monetized. When you combine that with huge political contributions to the Republicans who control the Justice Department and SEC, it’s naïve to think that crony capitalism will not come to the rescue in a time of need.

Voters in the upcoming Georgia Senate race should keep this in mind.  Crony capitalism takes precedence over your state and local needs when it is being managed by people who want to monetize and profit from everything.