The 60 Minutes report last night on insider trading by lawmakers and their staffs was inspired by a new book out this week, Throw Them All Out, written by conservative activist Peter Schweizer.

Dave Weigel notes one of the “ugliest revelations” in the book is the degree to which Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), then ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, bet against the stock market as it collapsed in 2008.

Schweizer details “no less than forty options trades” in Bachus’s records from July 2008 to November 2008 as he sat in secretive meetings with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke — Blackberries and phones were confiscated to avoid leaks — to discuss the state of the financial markets. The trades “made him wealthier” as “almost nobody else had the information he had.”

And it’s all perfectly legal since Congress is exempt from insider trading laws.

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) resigned as chairman and chief executive officer of MF Global Holdings Ltd, Bloomberg reports.

“His resignation came four days after the bankruptcy filing as the company’s bets on European sovereign debt rattled investors. U.S. regulators are investigating about $633 million missing from MF Global customer accounts.”

First Read: “Why not stick around and fix this? Why run away? Perhaps there are legal
reasons to do. Perhaps he thinks it’s the honorable thing to resign.
Maybe he was an absentee CEO and is embarrassed this happened on his
watch. Whatever the explanation, it’s not good for Corzine’s reputation.
The whole point of Corzine’s relevance in politics was his knowledge
and success of the financial world. Politicians can recover from sex
scandals because the public is willing to separate the personal flaws if
the professional work is on the up and up. Corzine’s fall may be harder
to recover from.”

MF Global, the brokerage run by former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), collapsed into bankruptcy when a potential buyer noticed that hundreds of millions of dollars of customer money couldn’t be accounted for, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The probe is at an early stage, and it isn’t clear if the money is
missing or if the inconsistencies relate to sloppy bookkeeping.”

Said one person familiar with the situation: “They still don’t have it figured out.”

Jon Corzine (D), whose political ambitions ended when he was defeated for re-election as New Jersey governor nearly two years ago, has now run his Wall Street firm into bankruptcy, Deal Book reports.

However, Corzine “is expected to receive a severance payment of nearly $12.1 million.”