♪ >> Hello and welcome to "Amanpour and Company."

Here is what is coming up.

Ukraine contests Russian claims amid the devastating toll on their soldiers.

Our report embedded with the troops.

>> Unfortunately there are some in the world and here among you who turn a blind eye.

>> The Ukrainian president speaks inconvenient truths to Arab leaders after his subtle diplomacy to Saudi Arabia and the G7.

We assess the moving pieces.

>> People are valid as they are.

>> Inclusivity is fashionable, as British Vogue finds the beauty.

I speak to disability activist Sinéad Burke.

>> Account is a dozen or so lawmakers that have posted trade in the stocks.

>> We speak with the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter.

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Christiane: Welcome to the program, everyone.

I am Christiane Amanpour in New York.

Is the grinding battle for Bahkmut over?

The Russians claim to have seized control of the city but Ukraine and Isaac, saying they hold some territory and they are fighting Russian troops there.

Russia has thrown wave after wave of mercenaries into the fight in Ukraine has lost some of its most experienced soldiers.

While the defenders say morale is high, the fighting is taking its toll.

Here is Nick Robinson on patrol with exhausted and shell-shocked Ukrainian troops near Bahkmut.

>> Barely out of the armored troop carrier, incoming artillery.

We are going to wait in this basement until the shelling is over and then it will be safe to move forward.

A few minutes later, safe to come out of this army outpost a few miles from Bahkmut.

Last night was hard, a lot of shelling.

Callsign gambit tells us the soldier is still shell-shocked from an anti-attack rocket attack.

I'm going to try to get closer to the front lines.

10 days ago, these troops pushed the Russians back around Bahkmut , but their advance is slowing and harder.

We get to a small HQ.

Callsign Fox, a former farmer, is readying troops for the coming shift on the front line, stopping the Russians in Bahkmut from advancing.

How hard is that?

It is impossible to describe these feelings, he says.

You can only experience at, no words can express it.

They shall a lot.

As we talk it is clear this war is taking its toll.

You only have to look at the soldiers' faces to know how tough this battle is.

They all look worn.

They say morale is high but their faces tell a different story.

We move on toward other positions and stop as the shelling increases.

We've been told the place we were going to is under heavy shelling so we will pull back and go somewhere else.

In the Battalion bunker, the commander tells us the Russians have ramped up shelling on his troops since the advance.

Tons of ammo, shrapnel, tanks firing, everything.

His unit's drones recorded recent successes but now the Russians have regrouped and in a moment of candor following losses the previous night, admits that morale is flagging.

Let's be honest, he says, we are fighting heavily for more than a year.

My soldiers went through many battles, to rotations near Bahkmut.

Troops are exhausted but we endure.

Bahkmut is just over the hill in that direction and has become an object lesson in how Russia's wealth and men and ammunition can prevail.

Unless Ukraine gets support from allies, it will struggle to tip the balance.

Callsign Fox and his unit load up for hard miles at the front.

The end of war and getting back to families is what drives them into the shelling.

Christiane: Nick Robinson reporting on that early difficult situation.

President Zelenskyy threw himself into the breach, traveling across half the world to speak face-to-face with leaders, including some stand on the sideline.

At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, he compared the devastation of the atomic bomb to the ongoing distraction in Bahkmut while admitting it was not a perfect comparison.

He pulled aside the Indian prime minister, asking him to get off the fence and support their defense.

All after stopping in Saudi Arabia to address Arab League leaders who maintain close ties to the Kremlin.

>> Unfortunately there are some in the world and here among you who turn a blind eye to those cages and illegal annexations.

I am here so everyone can take an honest look, no matter how hard the Russians try to influence.

There must still be independence.

Christiane: How will President Zelenskyy's pushed use of increased support for Ukraine play out?

Vali Nasr was a State Department official who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University.

He joins me from Washington.

Welcome back.

Prof. Nasr: Thank you.

Christiane: What struck you most about what we just played, what President Zelenskyy said at the Arab League and the fact he was there at the invitation of the Saudi Crown Prince?

Prof. Nasr: I think the invitation was very much for the Arab League to try to portray it is open to supporting Ukraine at least at some level, to hearing arguments from President Zelenskyy.

It was an effort at public relations.

But I don't think resident Zelenskyy's message is going to carry very far because of the countries in this region, some of them need Russia, some have economic relations with Russia.

Saudi Arabia itself has an oil deal between OPEC and Russia that is vital to the price of oil.

Secondly I think resident Zelenskyy's attempt to shame them into getting off the fence and not supporting Russia does not quite address the way in which the region looks at this conflict.

They see it as a European conflict for which region and the rest of the global Southeast is paying a disproportionate price in terms of higher energy prices, food shortages, recession.

And there is no Western help for countries like Egypt, Jordan, smaller Arab country suffering because of this war.

So a message that works with European leaders or Western leaders does not necessarily resonate here.

However, you have to laud President Selassie for trying very hard and reaching out to the global South and trying to at least engage them in conversation about what the war means to his country and the rest of the world.

Christiane: Let's take some of those bits separately.

Saudi Arabia has specifically voted to condemn Russia's invasion.

It has also a while ago pledged some $400 million in aid to Ukraine.

But it has not joined the sanctions nor the squeeze on Russian gas and oil.

The UAE are providing a haven for a lot of Russian exiles and business and intentionally some, it is said, potential diplomacy.

What are they doing given the fact that their main ally is the United States, in terms of security?

Or is that itself shifting?

Prof. Nasr: That is shifting definitely.

Ukraine is one big reason it is shifting.

The United States and Europe are overly preoccupied with Ukraine militarily speaking.

And then with China.

In a way, the Ukraine more is encouraging the countries not to rely on the United States for security.

But also these countries are supportive of Ukraine in principle.

They don't think that the war Russia is waging on Ukraine is justified, should have happened or that it was wise.

But in the midst of this they have interests and they are sometimes economical, like Saudi Arabia has an oil interest with Russia, or UAE has an interest in terms of the money the oligarchs have put into the country, or even other Arab countries -- Egypt, Jordan, Morocco.

They have their own interest.

What they want to see right now is not that Ukraine wins unilaterally and Russia loses definitively.

This doesn't mean anything for those interests.

They want the war to end.

The conversation we heard by President Zelenskyy was not a pathway to how the war ends and therefore the pressure of food prices, recession and economic pressure comes down, but rather an argument that you need to support us unconditionally, even when your own interests are not served by it, and meanwhile we also do not have any sort of solution for the economic problems that have landed on you.

What these countries are doing in a sense, whether it is rich Saudi Arabia or the more poor Arab countries, is look at their own interest in the wake of economic sets of issues this war has unleashed on them.

Christiane: If you fast-forward, or rather put the tape in reverse back to 1990, it was Saudi Arabia and the Arab League that bitterly criticized and rightly so the illegal Iraqi invasion into Kuwait and practically landing on the border of Saudi Arabia.

The United States rushed with a massive and unprecedented coalition to its defense.

Our memories that short and does not the international order still matter given especially they know the Russian invasion was illegal?

Prof. Nasr: That's a good point, there's a lot of similarity to what Iraq did in Kuwait and what Russia is doing in Ukraine, invading a country against international law and trying to and exits territory.

That's why the Arabs are trying to portray themselves as some pathetic to Ukraine's position.

None of them have said they actually think Russia's claims to Ukrainian territory is legitimate or that Russia should have waged war.

It is rather to say that while we accept that Ukraine is in the correct, we nevertheless have certain vital interests we need to protect and also that our interests are for this war to end as quickly as it can so that the price of food and energy can come down and our economies can get going.

It is the principles clashing with certain reality that the Arab world as a whole is facing.

And in the context you set the United States is no longer even committed to the security and usher in China matter a lot more in the volatile region in which they live.

Christiane: As that as we said, sort of the chess pieces on this global board seem to be changing , how do you, and how should one assess the Saudi and Arab League embrace and rehabilitation of President Assad of Syria, who Saudi did not back during the crackdown and ordered Qatar, and yet Assad is welcomed at the Arab League.

An ally of Moscow, Moscow came to his defense as well as Iran during the war in Syria against the opposition.

Why is Assad being welcomed back?

Prof. Nasr: First of all, they did more than not support Assad during the uprising.

Some of these countries actively supported the opposition in the hope that Assad would be toppled.

You have to say that strategy failed.

The entire European, American, Arab hope that the uprisings in Syria would topple Assad have failed.

Assad is still in control in Syria and when the Arabs look at this reality, they also see the West, the United States and Europe, have no plans for removing Assad from power.

They are trying to deal with extremism in Syria, Isis and Al Qaeda, but the Assad government is no longer under threat.

They also realize that things the Arab world now needs with Syria, the West is not going to provide.

That is a way to get the refugees to return home, so countries like Jordan would be relieved of the mass refugees they are hosting.

And also deal with the unprecedented high level of drug trade threatening the region and coming out of Syria, which is turning anyways into a narco state.

They are realizing there is no way to deal with these issues unless they engage Assad because the West is not dealing with these issues.

The West is therefore Isis and Al Qaeda not to deal with drugs or to return refugees.

As a result, they adopted a strategy that they also adopted with Iran.

When you need to talk to your enemy to find a solution.

The Arab League part of this has come after many of these countries have already engaged Assad bilaterally.

The Egyptians, the Saudi's, UAE, they all have sent emissaries to Damascus and had already visited UAE.

This is now making it official that they are pursuing a very different kind of relationship with Syria in the hope they can open a channel to have a serious conversation about Assad and things that threaten the Arab world about Syria today.

Christiane: On that note, do you think the Saudi rapprochement with Iran is paying dividends for it right now?

President Zelenskyy criticized the Iranian sale or delivery of attack drones to Russia, being used to attack civilian infrastructure and civilians inside Ukraine.

Also said to the Saudis and Arab Muslim gathering that Russia's oppression of Muslims in Crimea should be a matter of concern.

Does any of that resonate?

And again, how is Iran working to regain Saudi faith and terms of the deal it struck?

Prof. Nasr: First of all, those kinds of conversations about the oppression of Muslims in Russia are all true, but these Arab governments are going to follow their own interest.

They are not supporting the United States position on the Uighurs in China either.

They think they have bigger issues with Beijing and Moscow than getting into a conflict over Muslim minorities.

They are setting principles aside for what they see as their own national interest.

I think the Saudis also when it comes to Iran are mindful that if they become too pro-Western, the Russians may give Iran capabilities and military assets the Saudis don't want the Russians to give Iran, including advanced missiles and jet aircraft.

On the other hand, I think a breakthrough with Iran is important at a regional level.

It suggests the Saudis are approaching away about this region in which they de-escalate tensions and threats to Saudi Arabia.

In Yemen, in Iran, in Syria.

Inviting Assad to the Arab League in a de facto way is victory for Iran.

Even though Iran may be warning about how close Assad gets to Saudis, right now it is indication that the leader Iranians backed won the battle for Syria and is being welcomed by the very government that tried to topple him.

We are in an environment in which everybody is operating in this gray area and of course the success of the Iran and Saudi rapprochement is important, whether this Arab League rapprochement will work or not.

Right now everything is slowly moving in that direction.

Christiane: In terms of gray area, there is a black-and-white vision of this amongst the G7 and NATO allies, which is where President Zelenskyy touched in Hiroshima.

The U.S. has changed a year-long decision on fighter jets and training pilots, they are going to do it and allow allies to send either jets to Ukraine.

This is what Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor said this weekend.

>> The United States has mobilized an exceptional effort to deliver on time and in full everything Ukraine needs to launch this counteroffensive.

Now that we have done that, we can look forward to the long-term capacity of Ukraine to be able to defend itself and deter Russian aggression.

Fourth-generation Western fighter aircraft are relevant to the fight and that's why the president told G7 College this weekend he will support the training of Ukrainian pilots.

But he is focused on the type of system needed for the phase of the fight at hand, and for this counteroffensive he has delivered at speed and at scale what the Ukrainians need.

Christiane: So, that is from the allies, and yet from what you are saying, despite the heavy weight they have, it appears most of the world is not on that side.

What does that mean about general U.S. influence around the world, particularly in that region with China on the doorstep of that summit?

Prof. Nasr: We looked at the Middle East case when we were talking and there is a lack of trust in the United States' willingness to live up to its words.

It did not deliver in Syria, it did not deliver during the Arab Spring.

It has backed away from confrontation with Iran, even President Trump did not want to confront Iran.

The world and the Middle East are watching Ukraine very carefully to see whether the United States actually continues to back President Zelenskyy and Ukrainians until the end.

Elections in the U.S. are on the horizon.

At the same time, they have other sets of issues here.

Their issue is not whether Ukraine can win this war, their issue is when is the economic pressure of this war lifted?

Christiane: Finally, another big trick question: the whole rapprochement between Saudi and Iran may have struck Israel as a setback for its attempts and desires to have some kind of rapprochement beyond the Abraham Accords.

Axios last week said the White House wants to make a diplomatic push for Saudi talks.

Would they make sure there would be a quid pro quo for the Palestinian issue?

Prof. Nasr: I think that is the crux of it.

I don't think the normalization is dependent on Iran in his dependent on government in Israel doing everything possible to make it very unpalatable for an Arab leader to be recognizing Israel at this moment.

Israel cannot be billing settlements, as it announced today, and pressuring the Palestinians the way it is and expect Saudi's would be willing to come to the table.

Christiane: It's really an incredible situation.

Thank you for all of that analysis.

Just a note -- on April 10, I referred to the murders of a British Israeli family, the wife and daughters of a rabbi.

During that live interview I misspoke and said they were killed in a shootout instead of a shooting.

I have written to the rabbi to apologize and make sure he knows that we apologize for any further pain that may have caused him.

Now, resetting the conversation on his abilities in the media and society at large.

Activist Sinéad Burke is one of British Vogue's five disabled cover stars this month in a special edition called reframing fashion.

It was produced in tandem with her company tilting the lens and feature stories of 19 P with disabilities across the world.

She joins me to talk about education and inclusivity.

Sinéad Burke, welcome to the program.

Sinéad: Thank you for having me.

Christiane: You talked about what it was like being photographed for the cover and I want to hear from you how you felt when the shoe was wrapped, what you felt like with that platform.

Sinéad: I think the moment the shoot wrapped, it was an indication that so much of the work was already completed and yet so much had yet to be undertaken.

About a year ago, Edward Enninful got in touch with me and asked of me and my company would support as consulting editor for this issue.

The photo shoot and ensuring the set itself was accessible to the many disabled people that are part of the portfolio and covers was merely one step, but I think for me as a personhood previously been on the cover of Vogue in 2019 as part of the forces for change issue, felt extraordinarily proud.

I was very aware of the fact that the first little person to be on the cover of any Vogue magazine ever was an incredible honor.

But I took it very personally in the sense that it was a call to action to ensure that with the currency, the platform and the opportunity in front of me, I created a pathway, a critical path for as many disabled people as possible to participate in Vogue and in the industry they desire.

Christiane: How did you first become involved in this reframing fashion agenda?

Sinéad: My interest in fashion goes back inside was a child or teenager.

My background is in education and a teacher by training.

One of the principles of tilting the lens is education because we don't know what we don't know.

Yet as a teenager I became viscerally aware of the fact that fashion was a powerful industry, albeit with many challenges particularly as a little person, when I sit in front of you, a custom tie-dye Prada dress, that gives me power.

For me, I understood fashion people the vocabulary and yet the industry in and of itself was often exclusionary or invisible to disabled people and vice versa.

So for me I understood that if we could embed ourselves within the fashion system and think about the ways in which representation could take shape, yes on magazines and shows, but also in board, wind we all wear close at different price points and to some of us make conscious decisions about the types of clothes we wear, that because of the proximity to each of us individually and the closeness to our skin, fashion was an incredibly important industry to tackle and to use as a case study.

Christiane: You are basically saying you right now are welling a custom tie-dyed Prada dress, is that right?

Sinéad: Yes.

Christiane: It looks great.

What were you going to say?

Sinéad: I think being able to sit in front of you and a custom tie-dyed product address is a privilege and in many ways an exception.

So many of my reasons for being in reframing fashion, but also in this business is because I was the exception and not the rule.

How do we make sure fashion is not just accessible to me but everyone?

While I can sit here as assemble of that, it's about work that follows for systemic change could Christiane: Of course, and we will talk about your organization.

First I want to go back to what you said.

You were very aware as a teenager about the inaccessibility because as you call yourself, as a little person.

And you say you are a teacher.

Those are two really important observations.

As a teacher, you have to teach and be accessible to and have all of your students come on side for whatever you are trying to teach them.

What was that like as a little person?

Did you get the respect you needed in the classroom?

Were there challenges in the beginning?

Sinéad: I think in many ways the classroom was a microcosm for the wider world but also ask them if I the reality that I am disabled because I live in a world not designed for me, but designed for the majority of the people watching this program.

The classroom is indicative of that.

I'm very fortunate that when I told my parents, one of whom is disabled, that I wanted to be a teacher at four years old, neither of them questioned my ability to be a good teacher.

Nor did they highlight the fact that the classroom it self inaccessible.

To give you an example, I think many people when I started in my career began to question whether or not the children would respect me, particularly because many would be bigger than me.

What I did was redesign the classroom.

The students sat in a U shape so we were at eye level with one another and that transform the culture of the space and ensured I was not an authoritative presence, but it was about collaboration.

It became a codesigned element for each of us to be able to thrive and succeed as an individual and collective.

Christiane: That is amazing.

Did they help you win, say, you cannot reach a light switch or blackboard?

Did you get back from them what you were hoping?

Sinéad: Absolutely.

I think children's curiosity and desire to live in a better world is something we as adults could learn.

But it also brought about great skills and insight.

If I could not tack the artwork on the wall, it created an opportunity for curators in my classroom who were no older than eight or nine or 10, and able to criticize and offer feedback to Federer students as to how they could improve their practice.

In wider society and the business world, the fact that disabled people have skills based on the life they have lived, it is about the added value we have as individuals and a community.

It is not a burden or challenge but something to look at as an opportunity for belonging, inclusion and innovation.

Christiane: It's incredible, as you say, it is a microcosm.

Your organization, tilting the lens, the website says 15% of the global population, one billion people, live with some form of disability according to the UN.

You spend $1.2 trillion a year.

You have said this is not a moment, it is a movement.

You get the feedback, do you get the impression that the time is right and the ground is fertile for the wider message beyond fashion?

Sinéad: Absolutely.

I think we can see that momentum building but I think it comes down to individual, collective and systemic responsibility.

Many of us are unfamiliar or even uncomfortable using the language of disability.

15% of the global population at least and yet when we look at the statistics in the U.K., at the beginning of the pandemic, six out of 10 people who died of COVID-19 were disabled.

How do we ensure we never look back and continue to leave people behind?

If we also think about the future of industry and society, how often do we think about accessibility that does not just benefit disabled people but all of us?

Whether that is captions or Siri or voice technology, it benefits us as a collective, but we have to look at it as an investment not a cost and we have to build into our moral compass as individuals and organizations.

As we look to the future world we want to live in.

We are all getting older, which is a privilege.

What is the kind of world we want designed for us and with us in order for us each to continue to have equitable access?

Christiane: You inhabit a particular space of disability and yet it is not just about people like yourself.

The pressure from our Instagram world, any world, on women in general, is intense.

How do you think beyond the covers that Edward Enninful has done, both in 2019 and now this one as editor-in-chief of Vogue, had you think the general pressure on women and girls can be alleviated or mitigated?

Sinéad: I think the pressure, invisibility, or lack thereof is a dialogue we must continue.

Asking whether representation on five covers or 19 people in the portfolio was enough -- it is never enough.

But what you talked about is the importance of intersectionality.

For too long when we think about or have representations of disabled people, it is one type of disability and one type of person.

When we look at disability through a global lens and look at the way identities overlap, so we have on a cover a Black, trans, disabled woman, ensuring we are including those most marginalized in our conversation.

But how we think about the future of those norms, it's about continuously expanding the definition so many people can continue to feel included.

It's also about doing this with disabled people and not for disabled people.

That goes to his many marginalized groups as possible.

When we think about the future of people, whether it is the Internet or different forms that create biases and intra-people feel excluded, we have a collective responsibility to continue to extend the explicit invitation because people are valid as they are, whether or not they are on the cover of a magazine.

Christiane: Lastly, your own activism.

You mentioned a little bit your childhood, the support from your parents.

You have siblings, all of whom are described as average height.

What was it like growing up in that community, that family community, and what led you to activism?

Sinéad: I am very fortunate that I grew up as a loved child.

I have siblings.

My father is a little person.

Having the support when many little people are born to non-little people parents was important.

Being enriched by that environment has encouraged me to always try, to always be ambitious and to fail better, as it says.

I am fortunate but also aware that not everybody's immediate home life similar to mine.

I think what is important is we gather the networks and communities we need in order to ensure we have the support system and the people who believe in us to try what others may think is impossible.

In terms of activism, the classroom felt like such an essential launchpad to move from that microcosm to a wider society.

I think being embedded in the fashion system initially created an impetus to understand what that change could look like.

But really looking to whether it was the pandemic or small changes made in fashion and early acknowledging that this is not about one individual.

But a collective.

All of us to really create this change, not just today and tomorrow, but forever.

Christiane: Again, you have given a Ted talk that has been widely viewed and you are obviously in a position to encourage and help so many people.

Thank you, Sinéad Burke, for joining us.

Christiane: Now turning to the United States, where congressional insider trading, using information that is in public for financial gain, was outlawed in 2012.

That law did not stop members of Congress from buying and selling shares of companies affected by the legislation they write.

That could be set to change.

Wall Street Journal Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Rebecca Ballhaus has been investigating this and she discusses this with Hari Sreenivasan.

Hari: Rebecca, I know you are part of the Wall Street Journal's second Pulitzer Prize, or this is your second Pulitzer Prize for uncovering great reporting on financial conflict of interest.

Let's focus more on your recent reporting on how members of Congress or people in government have been trading stocks during this banking crisis we seeing.

Rebecca: Three lawmakers traded bank stocks while also taking part to varying degrees in discussions over how to handle the banking crisis.

Since we published that story, I think the count is now at least a dozen or so lawmakers who have reported trades in bank stocks.

It ranges from lawmakers who don't seem to have been that involved in the response to lawmakers who were in private discussions with financial regulators surrounding the closure of various banks and trading bank stocks at the same time.

Hari: These kinds of conversations, and we don't have transcripts of exactly what was said between one person or another, is it the appearance of impropriety that is the problem?

Hari: At best it is -- Rebecca: At best it is the appearance of impropriety.

There is a Congresswoman from New York who reported -- she publicly said she had private discussions with financial regulators surrounding the closure of signature bank.

A couple of days later she reports buying stock in New York Community Bank core.

A few days after that, a subsidiary of New York Community Bank Corps takes over the deposits of Signature Bank and sent the stock soaring.

Her office says she was not aware of that, that they did not come up in the discussions with regulators but it is an issue where you sort of have to take people's word for it that it is not something worse than an appearance problem.

Hari: This is a bipartisan problem.

You also focused on a representative from Oregon.

Rebecca: He traded I think three bank stocks when he was part of a bill that would tighten regulations.

Hari: Did the representatives in your recent pieces reach out to clarify what their positions were?

Rebecca: The first representative, her office said she was not aware that New York Community Bank Corp. planned to take over signature bank and it had not come up in conversations with financial regulators.

Essentially saying she was not trading on inside information.

Beyond that, I think the other representative offices denied any wrongdoing and set a financial advisor was involved.

There are a lot of ways to sort of defend the lawmakers but I think what it comes down to is how it looks when you reading these disclosures.

Hari: There are a lot of reports around the pandemic.

As we lived through, there was a massive market correction, a precipitous drop in a lot of stocks.

If you knew what sorts of stocks were going to be affected by, say, a nationwide shutdown, could have sold those early and quite a few members were found that had very coincidentally profitable trades.

Rebecca: I think that was among the more scandalous moments of this kind of trading the last several years, when it emerged several members of Congress had sold off millions of dollars worth of stocks.

One example was Richard Burr, who sold I think over $1 million of stock after attending a closed-door briefing on the threat of the virus.

He ended up being investigated by DOJ and the SEC but was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing.

That was Senator Burr, a Republican, but you also had Dianne Feinstein, similarly selling off a lot of her portfolio.

It's not concentrated in one party or the other.

Hari: If this was non-numbers of Congress and the SEC or any other body looking into these kind of things, would we be investigated for insider trading or having insider knowledge and making a trade that was coincidentally very profitable for us?

Rebecca: That's always hard to say.

Congress is not allowed to insider trade, much like everybody else.

I think it is an area where there have been so many scandals that they have stopped getting the same intense scrutiny they might have once gotten.

I think people have gotten more used to this behavior.

Hari: What is Congress's response to this?

I know there are individual members in the Senate and House trying to do something about it.

Rebecca: What is interesting is there are Sony members of both parties who have proposed bans on stock trading outright.

There are differences in the kind of proposals introduced.

Most of the differences deal with what kind of blind trust lawmakers could put holdings and.

For the most part, several members of both parties support banning members of Congress from trading and holding individual stocks and would require them to put their investments in some kind of a trust.

That would help this issue because right now there are no rules other than the ban on insider trading.

There are no rules that require lawmakers not to trade in stocks that could be affected by the work or areas where they have private knowledge of what is coming.

Congress is in a unique addition to have a sense of what is coming for a particular industry or company.

Congress is unique, at least compared to the executive branch, and that it faces no rules that determine whether they can trade in something they are working on.

Hari: If there is some bipartisan agreement that some think should be done about this, what is the resistance in Congress?

Is there a rationale or argument about why legislation like this is not going forward?

Rebecca: That's a good question.

I think there are couple of issues.

The argument against having a band like this is number one, people argue it would deter lawmakers from running for Congress if they feel like they have to sell their stocks or put them in a trust and otherwise cannot trade.

The other argument is if members of Congress are not able to trade stocks, it would in some ways divorced them from the economic interests of their constituents.

Those are some of the arguments put the word.

But I think on that, it is an issue of coming to an agreement on what it should look like.

This past fall, House Democrats introduced a proposal that would ban stock trading, require lawmakers to put their holdings in a blind trust, but that proposal drew a lot of criticism from some FX groups that said the rules for creating a blind trust were so weak it would make the current system worse.

I think some of the disagreement centers on what should these trusts look like?

Hari: There's been this philosophy a while that light is the best disinfectant and if I just disclose I purchased some shares, that transparency is enough in itself to avoid the conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest.

But the way that is reported, of when you bought a share and when you have to tell the public -- there is still a lag.

Rebecca: Right.

Congress is also of the three branches of government where disclosures are historically easiest to get because they are posted online.

But there is a delay.

I think more and portly, it had so many different scandals related to lawmakers trading stocks and nothing has really happened that I think the argument has a sort of become diluted because if members of Congress know they are very likely not going to face any consequences for trading in a stock that might look bad but not necessarily be insider trading, there's not really a disincentive for them to make those kinds of trades.

Hari: You've also been looking into not just members of Congress but other branches as well.

We are seeing both in judicial as well as executive branch, people and caught up in this and it being revealed after the fact that they might have had trades that were unduly profitable.

Rebecca: I spent most of last year looking at the executive branch of government.

That was a really interesting case because unlike Congress, federal agency employees have rules that say they are not supposed to trade in stocks of companies that could be affected by what they are working on.

When we first set out we expected we would not necessarily find that much because the rules are so much strict than for Congress.

But what we found showed there was a lot of questionable trading.

For starters, the disclosures that are supposed to be public that you are supposed to be able to review, were incredibly difficult to get.

We started requesting the forms for more than 50 agencies in January of last year and we still have not received the disclosures from some agencies.

More importantly, I think these disclosures showed there is rampant trading in stocks affected by the work of agencies and the FX officials are narrowly interpreting these rules, saying you have to be the deciding voice on an issue that would affect the company in order for it to count as a conflict.

Hari: Your investigation and capital assets looked at 2500 employees across 50 different federal agencies.

Were there any specific agencies or groups where it was particularly egregious?

Rebecca: There were a couple that really stood out.

One story we did early on was on the FTC, where he found a number of officials trading stocks and companies involved in mergers or other reviews by the FTC.

We also found officials were trading stock and major tech companies that have received a lot of scrutiny in recent years.

Many trades in Facebook in particular at the time when the FTC was investigating Facebook.

Beyond that, I think the EPA had a lot of trades in energy and oil and gas companies that would be affected by the agencies.

The same is true by the Energy Department.

Like with Congress, we also found instances of officials trading in the early days of the COVID pandemic in ways that appeared to be quite well-timed given what they might have known about what was coming.

Hari: In your investigation, just reading a quote from you about the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission in recent years have opened investigations into almost every major industry, it has launched antitrust probes, investigator credit card firms and moved to restrict mergers.

At the same time, senior officials of the FTC disclosed more trades of stocks, bonds and funds on average than officials of any other major agency in a review going back from 2016 through 2021.

How did they take up a special interest in tech companies and what did that due to their influence?

Rebecca: I think what was clear from that was that the rules were not being enforced in such a way that there was any disincentive to be trading in tech companies.

What FX officials were looking for work officials taking a leading role in a matter that could affect the company and they were not looking at this broader pattern of how all of these officials trading tech companies while we are supposed to be the agency making sure we are keeping a tight check on the tech industry.

It wasn't really that holistic of a view.

It was much more narrowly targeted on what exactly is this person doing and what exactly are they treating?

Hari: You mentioned the EPA as well and you found 200 senior EPA officials, nearly one and three, reported investments in companies that were lobbying the agency.

What do these investments look like?

Rebecca: One of the officials we highlighted in our story was a senior official trading repeatedly and oil and gas and energy companies and an ethics official flagged his trades and asked whether there was a conflict and the answer they got was that his role was much more administrative in nature and he was not determining the outcome of various regulations and therefore it wasn't a problem.

I think that is an example of a kind of narrow view some FX officials across the government are taking, looking at specifically, do we think they are working on the thing that could have a major outcome and not just look bad.

Hari: There is Nick Lang in New York I think, said he would introduce legislation to try and put better parameters around federal agencies could would that improve things?

Rebecca: I think like with the bans on congressional trading, a number of members have introduced legislative that would either ban trading or require agencies to impose tough restrictions.

I think a mixture of that would certainly improve the situation.

I think as it is you have this idea that sunlight is the greatest disinfectant but you are not really able to view most of these forms in real time.

When you do view them, you can see so much trading in the industry that the industry is supposed to be regulating.

Hari: Nancy Pelosi has famously been criticized for trades her husband has made an interestingly strange group of bedfellows in cosponsoring a piece of legislation to try to prevent lawmakers and families from profiting off of insider information.

Do you see that gaining any momentum, any meaningful momentum in trying to restore faith in government?

Rebecca: I think anytime you have such an unusual mixture of lawmakers, on the Senate side, you have Josh Hawley to Elizabeth Warren.

When you see those people banding together over an issue, I am more inclined to say it will get some momentum to I think for the executive branch in particular, some members of Congress feel it is important to address their own issues before they move on to the rest of the federal government.

You've seen some proposals that would restrict trading in both Congress and the judicial and executive branches, see them all three at once, and others say we need to do with Congress and then we can move on to everything else.

That is one hurdle we are seeing so far.

Hari: I know it's hard to measure our confidence in Congress and exactly what it is that shapes it, but I wonder, the type of reporting you, your team, the times and other papers, so many scandals have come into play and I wonder what that does to our faith and lawmakers in the system.

Rebecca: I think it's a really important question, because what we heard over and over from readers in response to our series last year was basically I knew it.

It's not necessarily shocking to readers but instead confirming a lot of what them already believed or feared, which is that lawmakers are out for their own private interests rather than the interests of the country.

I think if seen broad support for bans on stock trading in Congress.

I think it really is an issue that seems to be contributing sort of to the eroding public trust.

Hari: Rebecca, thank you so much.

Christiane: Trust is always critical.

Finally, a trio of new tourists has been welcomed aboard the International Space Station, led by an astronaut who has spent more time in space than any other American.

The paying customers are to Americans and an astronaut from Saudi Arabia, becoming Saudi's first woman in space.

They will be up there a week doing a number of science experiments.

That is it for our program.

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Thank you for watching "Amanpour and Company," and join us again tomorrow night.