Back in February, as the novel coronavirus spread across the United States, Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr penned an op-ed insisting that Americans had nothing to worry about because, he claimed, “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus.” Some other things Burr got up to that same month? Warning “a small group of well-connected constituents” that the virus was “much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history” and dumping as much as $1.72 million in stock shortly before the market tanked in response to the growing COVID-19 threat, a move now under review by the federal government.

CNN reports that the Department of Justice has launched a probe into a number of trades made by lawmakers ahead of the market downturn, in coordination with an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The FBI is said to have reached out to Burr about his stock sales, according to a person familiar with the matter. Thus far there is no indication that Burr broke any laws or violated Senate rules, though the optics certainly do not look great. According to ProPublica, the senator from North Carolina sold between $628,000 and $1.72 million in 33 separate transactions on February 13, less than a week after he told the American public it had absolutely nothing to fear. Among the sales were shares of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts worth up to $150,000 and shares of Extended Stay America, i.e. companies extremely vulnerable to a slowdown. Per ProPublica, Burr’s net worth was estimated at $1.7 million in 2018, so the February trades certainly helped preserve a significant amount of his wealth.

In a statement to CNN, Alice Fisher, a lawyer for Burr, said that the lawmaker “welcomes a thorough review of the facts in this matter, which will establish that his actions were appropriate,” adding “The law is clear that any American—including a senator—may participate in the stock market based on public information, as Senator Burr did. When this issue arose, Senator Burr immediately asked the Senate Ethics Committee to conduct a complete review, and he will cooperate with that review as well as any other appropriate inquiry.” Burr himself has said he “relied solely on public news reports” to inform his decision regarding stock sales and “specifically...closely followed CNBC’s daily health and science reporting out of its Asia bureaus at the time.” Naturally, he did not say why he trusted such news reports when making financial decisions, but seemingly ignored them when he was writing op-eds for Fox News telling people the virus was nothing to worry about.

Other senators on both sides of the aisle have come under fire for conveniently timed trades ahead of the downturn, though according to CNN, “it’s not clear who else the Justice Department is looking at and no other senator said they have been contacted by law enforcement.” They include Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler who, along with her husband—the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange—sold 27 stocks worth between $1.275 million and $3.1 million from January 24 through February 14; Dianne Feinstein, whose husband sold between $1.5 million and $6 million in stock of Allogene Therapeutics in January and February; and Jim Inhofe, who dumped five stocks worth between $180,000 and $400,000, in January, and another for $50,000–$100,000 in February.

All three lawmakers have denied any wrongdoing. Loeffler said she had no knowledge of the trades until after the fact, and that they were made by a third-party financial adviser. Inhofe also said in a statement earlier this month that he has no involvement in the investment decisions made for his portfolio. Feinstein, whose Senate records show she herself did not sell any stock, said that her husband made the financial transactions entirely on his own. “I have no input into his decisions,” she said. “My husband in January and February sold shares of a cancer therapy company. This company is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus and the sale was unrelated to the situation.”

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