Corona Daily 450: The Intelligent Senator

Late evening on Wed. 13 May, Richard Burr, a Senior USA senator, heard the doorbell ring. Even senators get startled by a doorbell these days. He opened the door to find FBI agents outside. They carried a warrant to confiscate his i-phone. A seasoned politician, Burr handed it over. What he didn’t know was that his i-cloud information was already under investigation.

Richard Burr has been the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee since 2015. In that capacity, he has access to classified information. In February, he was receiving daily briefings on the Coronavirus. On 7 February, he wrote an op-ed comforting the American public that the USA was better prepared than ever before.

On 12 February, two events happened. Burr received another classified briefing from health experts, explaining the gravity of the crisis. The same day, the US stock market reached its peak.

On 13 February, Burr and his wife, in 33 different transactions, sold up to 1.7 million $ worth of stock. They got rid of all their hospitality shares. On the same day, coincidentally, Burr’s brother-in-law also sold a major portion of his stockholding.

Kelly Loeffler from Georgia is one of the richest senators. She and her husband sold up to 3.1 million $ worth of stock. Her husband is the Chairman of the New York Stock exchange.

On 24 February, the stock markets began to collapse, and went down 32%. Burr saved at least half a million $ through his “timely” actions. Burr said his stock selling was based on knowledge available in the public domain, nothing to do with classified information. (Why didn’t smart fund managers use this public domain information in as timely a manner)?

Loeffler said her actions showed not corruption, but transparency.

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Obama’s administration had introduced the STOCK act to prevent exactly such insider trading. The need was so obvious that the “Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) act, 2012” was passed by the senators 96-3. Richard Burr was one of the three opposing senators.

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Is this one of the reasons why we, the public, receive information too late? Politicians with structural access to classified information get early warnings. They spend some time in securing their self-interest first. Then allow a couple of weeks for corrupt actions to cool down. The privileged information known to Burr and Loeffler was relayed to the general public a month later.

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Kelly Loeffler says she and her husband have never used any confidential information. However, in order to avoid the distraction, they decided to sell all their individual stocks.

Richard Burr maintains his innocence. However, on 14 May, he resigned from his powerful post as Chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.

Ravi