US Senate intelligence chief quits over virus insider trading row
● Senator under investigation over sale of stocks before market plummeted
Senator Richard Burr is set to resign as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee after the FBI served a search warrant for his mobile phone as part of an ongoing insidertrading investigation tied to the coronavirus pandemic.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell announced the move, saying he and Mr Burr had agreed that it was in the committee’s best interests.
FBI officials showed up at Mr Burr’s home with the warrant on Wednesday. It marked a significant escalation into the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Mr Burr broke the law with a welltimed sale of stocks before the coronavirus caused markets to plummet.
The search warrant was served on Mr Burr’s lawyers. FBI agents went to Mr Burr’s home in the Washington area to retrieve the mobile phone, a senior Justice Department official said.
The decision to obtain the warrant, which must be authorised by a judge, was approved at the highest levels of the department, an official said.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Mr Burr’s attorney did not respond to phone and email messages, but said in a statement last month the law was clear that any senator can participate in stock market trading based on public information “as Sen. Burr did”.
The attorney, Alice Fisher, said Mr Burr welcomed a review of the stock sales “which will establish that his actions were appropriate”.
Mr Burr has denied wrongdoing, but has also requested an ethics review of the stock sales.
He is an amiable member of the Senate and his quick call for an ethics investigation and willingness to co-operate with authorities appears to have bought him some good will among colleagues tapping down immediate calls for him to step aside.
Senate records show Mr Burr and his wife sold between roughly $600,000 (£492,093) and $1.7 million (£1.39m) in more than 30 transactions in late January and mid-february, just before the market began to nosedive and government health officials began to sound alarms about the virus. Several of the stocks were in companies that own hotels.
Mr Burr has acknowledged selling the stocks because of the coronavirus, but said he relied “solely on public news reports”, specifically CNBC’S daily health and science reporting out of Asia, to make the financial decisions.
He was not the only lawmaker to sell off stocks before the market slide.
Senator Kelly Loeffler, a new senator from Georgia up for re-election this year, sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in late January and February, as senators began to get briefings on the virus. So did fellow Georgia Senator David Perdue, another Republican lawmaker running for re-election, and also Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California.
Ms Feinstein said she answered questions from the FBI regarding trades made by her husband.
Senators did receive a closeddoor briefing on the virus on 24 January, which was public knowledge. A separate briefing was held on 12 February by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Mr Burr is a member of. It is unclear if he attended either session.
Mr Burr’s six-year term ends in 2023 and he does not plan to run for re-election.
He was first elected to the Senate in 2004 and chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee as the panel conducted its own investigation into Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential election. The committee recently issued a report supporting the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had interfered on US president Donald Trump’s behalf.