Posted on 03/19/2020 2:37:14 PM PDT by TigerClaws
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.
“Senator Burr filed a financial disclosure form for personal transactions made several weeks before the U.S. and financial markets showed signs of volatility due to the growing coronavirus outbreak,” his spokesperson said. “As the situation continues to evolve daily, he has been deeply concerned by the steep and sudden toll this pandemic is taking on our economy.”
Burr is not a particularly wealthy member of the Senate: Roll Call estimated his net worth at $1.7 million in 2018, indicating that the February sales significantly shaped his financial fortunes and spared him from some of the pain that many Americans are now facing.
He was one of the authors of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which shapes the nation’s response to public health threats like the coronavirus. Burr’s office did not respond to requests for comment about what sort of briefing materials, if any, on the coronavirus threat Burr may have seen as chair of the intelligence committee before his selling spree.
According to the NPR report, Burr told attendees of the luncheon held at the Capitol Hill Club: “There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history ... It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
He warned that companies might have to curtail their employees’ travel, that schools could close and that the military might be mobilized to compensate for overwhelmed hospitals.
The luncheon was organized by the Tar Heel Circle, a club for businesses and organizations in North Carolina that are charged up to $10,000 for membership and are promised “interaction with top leaders and staff from Congress, the administration, and the private sector.”
Burr’s public comments had been considerably less dire. In a Feb. 7 op-ed that he co-authored with another senator, he assured the public that “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus.” He wrote, “No matter the outbreak or threat, Congress and the federal government have been vigilant in identifying gaps in its readiness efforts and improving its response capabilities.”
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Burr was one of just three senators who in 2012 opposed the bill that explicitly barred lawmakers and their staff from using nonpublic information for trades and required regular disclosure of those trades. In opposing the bill, Burr argued at the time that insider trading laws already applied to members of Congress. President Barack Obama signed the bill, known as the STOCK Act, that year.
Stock transactions of lawmakers are reported in ranges. Burr’s Feb. 13 selling spree was his largest stock selling day of at least the past 14 months, according to a ProPublica review of Senate records. Unlike his typical disclosure reports, which are a mix of sales and purchases, all of the transactions were sales.
His biggest sales included companies that are among the most vulnerable to an economic slowdown. He dumped up to $150,000 worth of shares of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, a chain based in the United States that has lost two-thirds of its value. And he sold up to $100,000 of shares of Extended Stay America, an economy hospitality chain. Shares of that company are now worth less than half of what they did at the time Burr sold.
The assets come from accounts that are held by Burr, belong to his spouse or are jointly held.
If this is proven, take the money he and others made off of this early intel and hang the sock-chuckers.
“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”
- Aesop
Section 3 of the Stock Act:
Requires the congressional ethics committees to issue interpretive guidance of the rules of each chamber, including rules on conflicts of interest and gifts, with respect to the prohibition against the use by Members of Congress and congressional employees (including legislative branch officers and employees), as a means for making a private profit, of any nonpublic information derived from their positions as Members or congressional employees, or gained from performance of the individual’s official responsibilities.
By being the chairman of the senate intelligence committee, he was privy to information concerning the spread of the coronavirus and the effect it would have on the market, foreign and domestic. Burr sold off his stock on February 13, right after assuring the other holders that the market was fine when he knew it wasn’t, with the appearance of trying to cash out before he lost money on the stocks he got rid of from the market dump. He violated the Stock Act.
rwood
Yeah let’s get Congress to change this....wait. Read my tag
One thing we can count on, about communism, is that the apparatchiks are always taken care of...
I don’t think so.
I think he’s wondering how many of our esteemed leaders screwed us.
And it’s a fair question.
‘
You’re damn right.
Burr is a Dem Tool. After the Mueller Report showed a Hoax, Burr yanked Trump’s kids in for more hours of Perjury Traps.
Burr and Lindsey Graham do what the Senate Dems tell them.
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The Senate will Protect Biden at all Costs.
They cancelled the Subpoena they were threatening.
Lindsey Graham slimed Guiliani’s Info without ever seeing it.
Remember, the Idiots that told us Biden would be Investigated after Impeachment?
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If it ain’t illegal I couldn’t care less.
Burr was a spineless stupid man who let Mark Warner! run roughshod all over him in the Committee which Burr CHAIRED.
Weak, deceitful, thankfully he is retiring.
BINGO!!! WHAT do the DEMS HAVE ON BURR AND GRAHAM??? MAybe nothing other than they KNOW that Burr and Graham are OWNED BY THE DEMS!
By Feb. 13th what was coming was public knowledge to anyone paying attention.
WHY are liberals always able to obtain secret recordings of Republicans?
North Carolina has a rat Governor so simmer down, he can’t and isn’t going anywhere.
How do you prove he was “using information” and not just being cautious? Plenty of people thought the market was gonna crash.
And even if he “did” What the hell was he supposed to do, eat a huge loss? That’s like not removing a suitcase full of money from a house you know is wired to blow up, no rational person can not act on that info.
I’m sorry, insider trading laws are bullshit and I don’t see how they are constitutional.
And I’m not a hypocrite (on this!) if Nancy Pelsoi did the same thing I’d have the same reaction.
And no you can’t ban members of Congress from owning stock, this is America. MAYBE you can require total transparency so everyone can see if a Congressman dumps stock as soon as they do it.
You misunderstand me. I’m not giving him a pass. I want them all exposed.
Trump should publicly call him out. He is not a friend to the GOP.
Apologies
Tucker just said if Burr doesn’t have a good explanation, he should resign and be prosecuted
Man, you and I are on the same page that so many are not.
Yes, insider trading and the whole SEC is bullshit and unconstitutional. Nowhere does the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended give such sweeping power to the feds to regulate business in every conceivable facet.
The Left as usual has taken the Commerce Clause (meant to remove hindrances to interstate commerce), dumped the "Proper" part of the Necessary and Proper Clause, and turned the feds into a totalitarian government which is exactly what they are now.
We are one election away from the destruction of America as we know it. Everything is in place to do it. All you need is the Wrong Guy in the White House.
The greatest threat to our "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" is the 80%+ unconstitutional portion of the federal government which MUST be disbanded if we are to recover our Free Constitutional Republic.
Burr has a big target painted on his chest, in hopes of replacing him with a Democrat.
Burr has already said he isn’t running again.
Sen. Kely Loeffler dumped stocks as well:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-kelly-loeffler-dumped-millions-in-stock-after-coronavirus-briefing
How can we review the stock transactions of Democrats?
This a public record?
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