Posted on 03/20/2020 8:15:03 PM PDT by SpaceBar
Revealed: Four senators dumped millions in stocks while Capitol Hill was being briefed on the coronavirus threat but BEFORE markets started tanking
Richard Burr, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee which was directly briefed on coronavirus, sold up to $1.7m in stock between January and February.
Dianne Feinstein, on the same committee, sold up to $6m in stock in same period.
Kelly Loeffler, on the Senate Health Committee, sold up to $3.1m in stock starting on the day her committee was briefed by the CDC.
James Inhofe sold up to $400k in stocks including real estate all on January 27.
Four senators dumped millions of dollars worth of stock while Capitol Hill was being briefed on the threat of coronavirus but before the markets tanked as infections soared, disclosure records have revealed.
Republicans Richard Burr, Kelly Loeffler and James Inhofe and Democrat Dianne Feinstein collectively offloaded up to $11 million in stock between late January and early February, according to records seen by The Daily Beast, New York Times and ProPublica.
Burr, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was directly briefed on coronavirus, sold up to $1.7million in stock including in hotels, according to reporting from ProPublica.
Feinstein, a member of the same committee, sold up to $6million in stock including in a biotech firm...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Stock owner sits on committee that hears classified information.
Let’s money managers of blind trust in on possible market conditions based on classified information.
Money manager’s research to find alternative sources to permit an independent justification for a sale which leverages the “market conditions.”
Managers sell stock, make killing, and charge fees.
Poor schlubbs who bought lose out.
Press gets wind of sale suspiciously timed to just before the market collapse.
Press interviews Stockholder. Stockholder says very specifically, “I did not sell the stock. I was not informed of the sale until three week later.”
Press does not follow up and ask if they in any fashion communicated the likely market conditions.
Of course, the stockholder was not told of the sale until it was done. Of course they did not personally sell the stock.
The issue is whether they conveyed the insider information.
Innocent until proven guilty, but of course, no one can now ask them what was the exact nature of the classified committee briefing - after all, its classified!
Prosecutor cannot prove what they knew vis-a-vis classified information about upcoming market conditions.
Will they even investigate? Halfheartedly, to make it look good until after the election.
Answer: they must be voted out of office.
My $0.02 (USD)
Or, one committee member told another committee member’s money manager what was happening, and vice versa, so neither of them speak to their own money managers.
It would be hard to prove such an arrangement in a criminal case.
Have any of the Senators defended their actions by saying the trades were ordered by a trustee of a blind trust? If that had been the case, it seems the “honorable” ones would have gotten ahead of the story by now. Trading on the basis of material nonpublic information can be a crime, and, absent evidence to the contrary, it looks like trading on the basis of material nonpublic information is what happened here. Of course, the Senators are entitled to a presumption of innocence, but, as public servants, they should be held to a high standard of conduct.
The question came up earlier in the form of
Why are ‘they’ investigating how a private citizen turned politician had LEGALLY made a zillion bucks
WHEN
The real question SHOULD BE
How does a career politician manage to become a millionaire while ‘serving the people’?
Don’t fret .... Insider Trading is legal for congresscritters
It’s a Big Club, and you ain’t in it.
Yep am awaiting the confiscation of the People’s firearms. Has already somewhat begun though
Loeffler was on with Tucker Carlson earlier tonight trying her best to get out in front of it. That’s exactly what she claims, that her investments are handled by a blind trust and that she was only made aware after the fact.
Has this congresscritter sold any bridges in Brooklyn lately ???? Maybe she only deals in oceanfront property in Arizona ???
“Stock owner sits on committee that hears classified information.”
Then de-classify the meeting so we can see what info they had that no one else had. Easy-peasy
and they all claim it was some third party and unbeknownst to them.
crockashit
”...she claims, that her investments are handled by a blind trust and that she was only made aware after the fact.”
Yeah, I’m sure she never made a phone call, sent a text, etc.. More likely, had a subordinate do it for her...
Public SERVANTS have been getting rich for way too long. Time we stopped this corruption.
How can they claim insider trading?? Burr’s stock transaction occurred February 13. Here are some headlines from January:
January 14: WHO said there may have been human-to-human transmission of the virus, Reuters reported.
January 15: Li Qun, head of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) emergency center, claims the risk of human-to-human transmission is “low,” the Journal reported.
January 17: After 12 days, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission started giving daily updates on new cases of the coronavirus.
January 18: Despite the presence of the coronavirus, Wuhan holds a “potluck” banquet for 40,000 families to try and break a world record, The New York Times reported.
January 23: Wuhan is finally locked down, even though about 5 million people had already left the city without being screened by that time.
January 31: President Trump Bans Travel from China, Orders 1st Quarantine in 50 Years
It all depends upon what the committee was told about what to expect. If it was information that was not available to the public, meaning insider information, then that must not be acted upon. Insider information can even be an expert’s assessment of the situation, if it was something that the public would probably act upon if they had known. Knowing there is a risk in general is not the issue. Was there a specific assessment (I bet there was) of the impact on all of these business models going forward that was not available to the public.
Time will tell what will happen, I guess, but I am assuming there will be no prosecutions without some more direct evidence of wrongdoing.
I understand - but what bothers me is the timeline: the president issued the travel ban and quarantine on January 31sr but the Burr financial transaction occurred two weeks later - February 13th. I just don’t see how that can be considered as insider trading.
If there was a known specific outcome based on information not known to the public, something that would be important additional information to the general public in deciding to buy or sell a stock, and that was the basis for making the sale, then it is outlawed.
For example, if the health agencies or scientists working on it could describe a likely outcome of the spread of the disease that was far more specific than what the public knew, or if they discussed government plans and timelines for taking severe action impacting those businesses, then that is not information I would know as a John Q. Public.
If I had that information, would I have been more likely to sell?
This is especially true if the information came out after the President closed the Border with China, but the next stage was not yet announced.
It could be information learned even 5 minutes before the sale. So it could have been information transmitted any time in the two weeks before the sale, or much earlier.
The fact of the President’s actions does not vitiate any additional insider information used for making the sale.
That is the nature of the crime.
Knowing you are buying an old Chevy that may need work in the next 500 miles is different that knowing that the thing won’t start to get it off the lot after the sale is made.
General negative knowledge vs. specific negative knowledge.
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