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A 60 Minutes report on Sunday examined the ways that members of Congress trade on inside, privileged information to make themselves rich — without breaking any laws. Even though many positions in the federal government are bound by conflict of interest laws, Congresspeople are exempt from insider trading rules and are perfectly free to make business deals based on information they learn through their jobs.

The story is based on the work of Peter Schweizer, a researcher at the Hoover Institution. (Others have been studying the issue. As Bloomberg's Lizzie O'Leary and others have pointed out, The Wall Street Journal has reported on this issue quite recently and Megan McArdle dedicated her column in The Atlantic's November issue to the phenomenon of "congressional insider trading.") Schweizer and his team have looked at financial transactions made by Representatives and Senators and found that many, including the past three House Speakers, have made deals that appear to be based on non-public information that they had access to thanks to their position in Washington. Schweizer calls it "honest graft," since many people would consider it unethical, even though it's not illegal.