Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From Former GOP Congressman In Insider Trading Case
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up former Rep. Stephen Buyer’s attempt to overturn his insider trading conviction, leaving in place the guilty verdict against the former Indiana Republican.
Buyer was convicted in 2023 on four federal counts tied to allegations that he used confidential business information to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock market profits after leaving Congress.
Federal prosecutors argued that Buyer, while working as a consultant in the telecommunications sector, gained access to nonpublic information and then used it to trade ahead of major corporate developments before ordinary investors had the same opportunity.
A federal appeals court upheld the conviction last year. Buyer has continued to maintain that he did not break the law.
His appeal to the nation’s highest court focused less on the facts of the case and more on the reach of federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Buyer asked the justices to examine whether the mere fact that stock trades involve an exchange headquartered in New York is enough to allow insider trading cases to be prosecuted in the Southern District of New York.
According to The Hill, Buyer’s legal team warned that existing Second Circuit precedent could give the Manhattan-based U.S. attorney’s office jurisdiction over “virtually any” insider trading case involving publicly traded securities.
“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.
The Justice Department initially waived its right to respond to Buyer’s petition, but the Supreme Court requested a response from federal prosecutors.
The government argued that the lower courts properly relied on evidence presented at trial showing that at least some portion of Buyer’s trades was executed inside the Southern District of New York.
Prosecutors also said Buyer’s argument amounted to a “factbound objection” over the evidence in his case rather than a broader legal question requiring Supreme Court review, The Hill reported.
While the court refused to intervene in Buyer’s case, President Donald Trump notched a major Supreme Court victory in a separate immigration battle, winning support from nearly the entire court, including liberal justices.
In an 8–1 decision, the justices lifted a lower court order that had blocked the Trump administration from ending protected legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants currently living in the United States. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by then-President Joe Biden, was the lone dissenter.
The ruling allows the Trump administration to move forward with ending Biden-era Temporary Protected Status protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelan migrants residing in the country. It also clears the way for federal officials to begin enforcing removal efforts against those affected by the termination.
The case centered on whether the executive branch has broad authority over immigration decisions tied to national interest, foreign policy, and temporary humanitarian protections.
When U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued the matter before the Supreme Court, he sharply criticized the lower court’s reasoning.
“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 TPS designation for Venezuelans in a February memo, setting an April effective date for the termination.
“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.
For conservatives, the decision marks another important affirmation of presidential authority over immigration enforcement after years of Biden-era policies that expanded protections and limited removals. The Supreme Court’s order gives President Trump’s administration room to restore a stricter, sovereignty-focused approach to immigration law and border enforcement.