Exactly. You forget who makes the rules. For instance, employees of the SEC, are not prohibited from trading on insider information (they are to an extent, as

Exactly. You forget who makes the rules. For instance, employees of the SEC, are not prohibited from trading on insider information (they are to an extent, as in they can't do leveraged short-selling before in investigation is made public, however, for instance, selling out of a position before investigations become public knowledge is obviously common). https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b15dlrvg8cxkmv/study-sec-employees-earn-insider-trading-like-returns https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b15dlrvg8cxkmv... This is like asking "do high-level (and even medium-level) government employees have to pay taxes ?" (I'm European).