You embarrassed Barack Obama and his Chicago cronies, S&P. Now you must pay.

(Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) to disclose which employees knew of its decision to downgrade U.S. debt before it was announced last week, the Financial Times said, citing people familiar with the matter.

SEC’s move is part of a preliminary examination into potential insider trading, the FT said.

The inquiry was made by the SEC’s examination staff, which has oversight of credit rating firms, one person familiar with the matter told the newspaper.

So the SEC is basing this investigation on evidence, right? Right?

However, the securities regulator is not aware of a leak from an S&P insider, nor was it aware of an aberrational trade, the paper said.

Ah, I see. So there’s no actual evidence of any wrongdoing. The SEC has just decided to start investigating the ratings agency that embarrassed the Obama Administration by downgrading America’s credit rating. How very random and not at all corrupt of them.