Sen Loeffler to sell stock holdings after trading scrutiny
Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia said Wednesday that she will liquidate her stock portfolio and move the money to investment funds after coming under scrutiny for transactions she and her husband made just before the coronavirus sent markets reeling. Loeffler and her husband dumped substantial portions of their portfolio and purchased new stocks, including as much as $415,000 in DuPont de Nemours, a chemical company that manufactures protective equipment in exceedingly high demand because of the coronavirus pandemic. Loeffler’s husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
The sales and purchases came as Congress was receiving briefings on the seriousness of the then-burgeoning epidemic. Loeffler has said that she had no involvement in the trades and that they were managed by third-party advisers. On Wednesday, Loeffler said she would sell her holdings in individual stocks and move the investments into mutual and exchange-traded funds to avoid the political distraction. She said she has “not profited or attempted to profit” in her few months in the Senate.
Loeffler was appointed to the Senate in January by Georgia’s GOP governor after the retirement of Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson. “Amid this health crisis, the temptation to circulate lies and misinformation is too great for the media and my political opponents,” Loeffler said. “That is why I’m taking steps to remove this temptation so that we can turn our focus back to where it belongs: on combating COVID-19 and restoring our country to health and economic recovery.” (AP)