In the Lobby-infested cesspool that is Washington it is no surprise to find that the Fed 'accidentally' sent copies of the latest
Minutes to a select list of banks, investment managers and lobbyists. While the easy excuse is that it just is a 'fat finger' error caused by some junior staffer (an unpaid intern?) I just find this explanation less than satisfactory. As anyone who has ever sent an email message to a maillist should know a message is only sent to the recipients that are included in the list. If only this select group of recipients gets the mail it should mean that there was a sort of priority list. Otherwise all those who have signed up to get the Fed minutes delivered upon release should have seen the message at the same time. In addition, there should be a forensic audit into the trading activities of all recipient firms to find out whether they profited from this information or not.
