GOP Senator Dumped Stocks Amid Public Assurances

ProPublica reports:

Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $582,029 and $1.56 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 29 separate transactions.

As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story. A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.

On Thursday, Burr came under fire after NPR obtained a secret recording from Feb. 27, in which the lawmaker gave a VIP group at an exclusive social club a much more dire preview of the economic impact of the coronavirus than what he had told the public.

Read the full article.

story this morning: senator burr privately warned elite constituents about the real danger the coronavirus would cause

story this afternoon: senator burr sold $1.5 million in stocks right before the crash caused by coronavirus

— darth™ (@darth) March 19, 2020

what’s it called when a senator tells rich donors three weeks ago that a pandemic was coming, continues to go to Intelligence briefings, then sells off $1.6 million in stocks before the market collapses, and says nothing to the public?

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) March 19, 2020