Richard Burr wasn’t the only one to sell a bunch of stock before the market collapsed…

by The Right Scoop

Last night we reported that Richard Burr sold a bunch of stock just a week before the market collapsed. That report caused a bunch if digging and it turns out that Burr wasn’t the only one:

FOX NEWS – Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and three of her Senate colleagues sold off stocks worth millions of dollars in the days before the coronavirus outbreak crashed the market, according to reports.

The data is listed on a U.S. Senate website containing financial disclosures from Senate members.

Feinstein, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and her husband sold between $1.5 million and $6 million in stock in California biotech company Allogene Therapeutics, between Jan. 31 and Feb. 18, The New York Times reported.

When questioned by the newspaper, a spokesman for the Democrat from San Francisco said Feinstein wasn’t directly involved in the sale.

“All of Senator Feinstein’s assets are in a blind trust,” the spokesman, Tom Mentzer, told the Times. “She has no involvement in her husband’s financial decisions.”

Reports identified the three other senators as Richard Burr of North Carolina, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, all Republicans.

 
Kelly Loeffler:

Loeffler was appointed to the Senate in December by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp after incumbent Sen. Johnny Isakson resigned because of health issues – despite allies of President Trump having urged Kemp to select Rep. Doug Collins instead.

Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, sold stock Jan. 24, the same day she sat in on a briefing from two members of Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force, The Daily Beast reported.

Between that day and Feb. 14, the couple sold stock worth a total between $1.2 million and $3.1 million, the report said. In addition to the sales, they also purchased stock in a maker of software that helps people work at home – just before millions of Americans were forced to leave their offices because of the outbreak, the report said.

Loeffler responded to these reports…

 
James Inhofe:

Inhofe sold as much as $400,000 in stock all on Jan. 27, in companies such as PayPal, Apple and real estate company Brookfield Asset Management, The New York Times reported.

But in a written statement, Inhofe pushed back by saying he was not at a late January briefing and, further, does not have involvement in investment choices.

The statement said: “The New York Times allegations are completely baseless and 100 percent false. I was not at the briefing on January 24. I was meeting with pro-life kids from Oklahoma here for the March for Life and the new nominee to be U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania. I do not have any involvement in my investment decisions. In December 2018, shortly after becoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I instructed my financial advisor to move me out of all stocks and into mutual funds to avoid any appearance of controversy. My advisor has been doing so faithfully since that time and I am not aware of or consulted about any transactions.”

 
Burr, which you already know about, has finally responded to these reports and has asked for an ethics investigation into his sell-offs:

Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, used more than 30 transactions to dump between $628,000 and $1.72 million on Feb. 13, according to ProPublica.

The report said the transactions involved a significant percentage of the senator’s holdings and took place about a week before the impact of the virus outbreak sent stock prices plunging to the point where gains made during President Trump’s term in office were largely erased.


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