The Supreme Court of the United States on Monday declined to hear an appeal from former Rep. Stephen Buyer seeking to overturn his insider trading conviction.
Advertisement Federal prosecutors said Buyer obtained confidential information while working as a consultant in the telecommunications industry after leaving Congress and then used that information to make profitable stock trades before the information became public.
A federal appeals court upheld Stephen Buyer’s conviction last year, though the former congressman has continued to deny any wrongdoing.
Advertisement In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Buyer argued the justices should determine whether trading stocks on an exchange headquartered in Manhattan is sufficient on its own to justify prosecuting insider trading cases in the Southern District of New York
In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Buyer argued the justices should determine whether trading stocks on an exchange headquartered in Manhattan is sufficient on its own to justify prosecuting insider trading cases in the Southern District of New York.
Buyer contended that under precedent established by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, prosecutors in the powerful Manhattan-based U. S. attorney’s office could claim jurisdiction over “virtually any” insider trading case involving publicly traded stocks, The Hill noted.
“Today, while the New York Stock Exchange still has its physical headquarters in Manhattan, most trading no longer occurs on its floors; instead, trades execute electronically on computer servers located elsewhere,” his lawyers wrote in his petition to the nation’s high court.
Advertisement Initially, the Justice Dept
Initially, the Justice Dept. waived its right to respond, but the Supreme Court justices asked the department to do so.
Federal prosecutors told the Supreme Courtthat lower courts properly relied on trial evidence showing that at least part of Buyer’s stock trades were executed within the Southern District of New York.
Prosecutors argued that Buyer’s challenge amounted to a “factbound objection” regarding the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial and therefore did not merit review by the Supreme Court, The Hill reported.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump scored a massive victory at the Supreme Court, even getting the liberal justices to rule in his favor
The court lifted a lower court injunction that was preventing the president from stripping the protected legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants currently residing in the United States.
The decision was 8–1 in favor of what the president wanted, with the only dissent coming from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was appointed by then-President Joe Biden.
The decision clears the way for the Trump administration to proceed with plans to end Biden era Temporary Protected Status protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelan migrants living in the United States
The ruling also allows the administration to move ahead with efforts to begin removing affected migrants from the country, after government attorneys argued that federal officials should have the authority to immediately enforce the termination of the protections.
When U. S. Solicitor General John Sauer recently argued the case before the Supreme Court, he said the lower court had overstepped its bounds.
The district court’s reasoning is untenable,” he said, arguing further that the program “implicates particularly discretionary, sensitive, and foreign policy laden judgments of the Executive Branch regarding immigration policy.”
Then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked the Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans living in the U. S. in a February memo with an effective date in April.
“On October 3, 2023, Venezuela was newly designated for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) due to extraordinary and temporary conditions preventing the safe return of Venezuelan nationals,” she wrote.
After reviewing current country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S
Government agencies, the Secretary of Homeland Security has determined that Venezuela no longer meets the conditions for the 2023 designation,” the memo continued.
“Specifically, it has been determined that it is contrary to the national interest to permit the covered Venezuelan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States,” it said.
“Therefore, the 2023 TPS designation of Venezuela is being terminated,” Noem wrote.
