North Carolina Senator Richard Burr has just stepped down from his role as the leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and had his phone confiscated by the FBI, reports the New York Times.
He’s accused of using confidential information he received as a member of Congress to sell nearly a million dollars worth of stocks - just before the stock market tanked due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is highly illegal.
Burr claims he only used public information to make his stock decisions, but looking at the evidence puts that claim into doubt.
As Vox reports, Burr was one of few senators who voted against a bill prohibiting government officials from doing exactly what he’s accused of.
On February 7th, he co-wrote a piece for Fox News arguing that the pandemic was being handled well and Americans did not need to worry. He did not mention that he had just attended a senators-only briefing that outlined how damaging COVID-19 would be to the economy.
Less than a week later he sold millions in stocks, primarily in hotel, restaurant, and shipping companies - all industries hard hit by the pandemic. Even more suspicious is the Fox News report that his brother-in-law also sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stocks on the same day.
He’s not the only one in hot water for similar reasons.
Senators Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Dianne Feinstein of California, and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia have also been called to justify suspicious stock trades around the same time. They all claim that they did nothing illegal.
Feinstein says her stocks are in a blind trust over which she has no control, reports Forbes, and Inhofe says he similarly has a financial manager do his stock trading.
Senator Loeffler claims the same, but her situation seems even more damning: not only did she and her husband sell stocks in industries hardest hit by the pandemic, they purchased stocks in industries set to gain value.
Even more suspect is the fact that her husband is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
Fox News reports that all of the senators involved have complied with the Department of Justice, the Securities Exchange Commission, and the Senate Ethics Committee, and expect to be exonerated.
If they are punished for illegally making millions of dollars while tens of thousands of Americans died, it’s likely the punishment will be light. Average jail time for insider trading is about one year, in minimum-security facilities.
For many, especially Black Americans who are targeted and are frequently sentenced to years in prison for small-time drug sales, even that would show the inherent unfairness of our criminal justice system.
Whether they are guilty, however, and if so, what punishment they will face, is still as yet unknown.