What's even more pernicious is expectation of future payments. Even if Yellen had never taken any money from Citadel or even if it was 7 years ago, how do we know her decision-making isn't affected by the prospect of making $400k per speech after retiring, as Obama did - from Citadel! - a few months after giving up the presidency.

This applies to anyone in any position of power or influence ever. All we can hope for is that they are as minimally corrupt as possible, and all transactions and communications are transparent. Even then, you’ll get into trouble with privacy norms and being unable to conclusively prove “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” moves.

Oddly one-sided partisan whataboutism aside, this is a sitting official right now. Entirely different level of stink.

It's not too much to ask. But Citadel is not involved in any significant way with the Gamestop fiasco. Any claims to the contrary are crackpot conspiracy theories without any evidence.

Citadel's a market maker that processes a lot of transactions in pretty much every stock in the universe. It'd be like me saying that someone with ties to power company shouldn't investigate the mafia, because the mafia regularly used electricity.

Huh? https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/steve-cohen-...

Melvin had already closed out their short position in GME by the time Citadel invested in them.

https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2021-01-27/hed...

That's not a verified fact. It's based on a CNBC reporter repeating what an unnamed source from Melvin told them, and even so, the way they worded it was vague, in that it could have simply been a small part of the short position that was closed.

This is exactly why we need an unbiased source to look into this matter.

> It's based on a CNBC reporter repeating what an unnamed source from Melvin told them

FTA:

> "Melvin Capital has repositioned our portfolio over the past few days. We have closed out our position in GME (GameStop)," the spokesman said in a statement.

Citadel was clearly infusing cash into Melvin to compensate for Melvin's massive losses on GME, though. What's the significance of Melvin's position in the stock in the few days before or after Citadel bailed them out when the reasons remain the same?