We are in the middle of the greatest potential crisis most people have ever experienced and news just broke that some elected officials in the United States Congress sold millions of dollars in stocks after they were briefed on the CoronaVirus outbreak. According to the Daily Mail four US Senators appear to have used insider information, some of it likely classified, to make millions of dollars in stock trades just before the stock market crashed:
“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 $11million in stock between late January and early February, according to records seen by The Daily Beast and New York Times.
Burr, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was directly briefed on coronavirus, sold up to $1.7million in stock including in hotels; Feinstein, a member of the same committee, sold up to $6million in stock including in a biotech firm.
Loeffler dumped up to $3.1million in investments starting on the day the Senate Health Committee, which she sits on, was briefed by the CDC; meanwhile James Inhofe sold up to $400,000 in stock including real estate.”
While Loeffler and Feinstein have defended themselves, saying their stocks are invested in trusts and portfolios that they have no personal control over, that has not stopped the efforts by citizens to call them out on their actions at a time when many are losing their jobs in the middle of the Pandemic response in America.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge or STOCK Act makes it illegal for members of Congress from insider trading based on classified information they have received in briefings. I wonder how many more will be found out?
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