It is now being reported that the FBI in close cooperation with the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating US lawmakers who dumped their stocks after getting a troubling report on the coronavirus. It is illegal for members of congress to trade on insider information they get during hearings and briefings. Yet many still do, including perennial money grubber Dianne Feinstein.
Richard Burr of North Carolina is the one in the most trouble. His excuse is that he didn’t use insider knowledge but dumped his stocks after watching CNN Money. I would consider a Republican taking over Burr’s seat as a pick up. He is a NeverTrumper and we don’t want or need him.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) claims that neither she nor her husband control the trades in their portfolio and that she learns about trades when she gets her quarterly report.
Loeffler told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto on March 24:
“I don’t do trades, Neil. I’m not involved in my portfolio. My husband is not involved. Our portfolio is managed by third parties. The actions are blind to me until they put it in front of me at the end of the reporting period. And I will just tell you, in that portfolio, it’s absolutely false that we sold millions. Actually, it was a more bullish bet. We ended up owning companies like Delta, like Goldman Sachs, like Prudential, companies that have been hard-hit and ended up losing money. No one has reported that and it doesn’t, you know, it has nothing to do with knowledge I had or didn’t have because I had no involvement in these trades.”
Dianne Feinstein didn’t sell off stock but her husband, Richard Blum did. It’s not the first time they have been accused of unethical behavior. When Feinstein was the chairperson of MILCON, Military Construction, her husband bought into three companies that got no bid contracts from the MILCON committee. After their plot was discovered, Feinstein resigned from the committee and her husband sold his stakes in the three companies for a whopping $20 million dollar profit.