Profiting off the coronavirus AKA SARS CoV-2 or Covid-19 crisis, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.) sold millions of dollars of stock before the market crashed. Feinstein and her billionaire husband Richard Blum sold $6.4 million weeks before the market crashed from the coronavirus epidemic engulfing the country. Major market averages, including the Dow Jones Industrials, S&P 500 and Nadaq are down 35%, since hitting a record high Feb. 12 of 29,551. At 19,227 today two hours before today’s close, there’s no floor on the Dow, S&P 500 or Nasdaq unless the nation can stop the coronavirus mass hysteria seizing the country. Conservative Fox News commentator 50-year-old Tucker Carlson called for Sen. Burr to explain his stock sales or resign. But does the Security and Exchange Commission consider knowledge about an epidemic insider trading?
When 78-year-old billionaire homemaker guru Martha Stewart dumped her ImClone Systems stock, getting a tip for its CEO-founder Sam Waksal Dec. 27, 2001, saving her 46,673, she was convicted July 16, 2004 of insider trading, spending six months in federal prison. Yet getting a tip from a CEO of a biotech company is much different that figuring out the market was about to tank because of a global pandemic. Waksal, who told Stetwart that his anti-cancer drug Erbitux was rejected by the FDA, was also convicted June 10, 2003 of insider trading, spending six years in federal prison. Whatever the ethics behind unloading stock, Burr, Feinstein and Inhofe were well within their rights to dump shares like any investor based on their knowledge of the market. There’s no legal case for insider trading against the savvy Senate investors, all of whom are multimillionaires.
Since Wall Street recovered from its 2008-2010 meltdown, the longest bull market in history was losing steam before the coronavirus outbreak. When the Dow bottomed March 6, 2009 at 6,468.95, it was all up from there until it hit its record high Feb. 12, 2020 of 29,551.42, only to watch it fall to 19,808 two hours before today’s close. Watching the Covid-19 crisis spiral out-of-control, any investor, from elected officials to CEOs of major companies, make judgments on where the market’s going. It’s difficult to say with certainty that a U.S. Senator has any more insight than anyone else on what’s going to happen to Wall Street based on a global pandemic. Whatever damage Covid-19 does to humans, it pales in comparison to the damage done by elected officials swept up in the mass hysteria, shutting down the economy to allegedly save lives. Taking away citizens’ right to work does far more damage.
Feinstein’s spokesman tried some urgent damage control to save his boss’s squeaky-clean image. That’s the same senator that tried to sabotage Associate Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, introducing a crazy-women’s, Christine Blasey-Ford, unfounded rape allegations. “All of Senator Feinstein’s assets are in a blind trust, as they have been since she came to the Senate,” Feinstein spokeman Tom Mentzer said in a damage control email. “She has no involvement in any of her husband’s financial discussions,” completing the most lame, absurd, incredulous excuse. At 86-year-of-age, the only reason Feinstein can’t recall what’s going on is obvious. She’s not oblivious to her joint financial holdings with her billionaire husband. But whether she’s aware of her family’s finances or not, she’s not blind to the cornonvirus pandemic buffeting financial markets around the globe.
All the denials from U.S. Senators financial dealings only makes them look worse. “My adviser has been doing so faithfully since that time and I am not aware of or consulted about any transactions,” said Inhofe, not saying whether or not he gave his broker the sell order. Saying he’s hasn’t consulted about “transactions” doesn’t mean he didn’t tell his adviser to sell. Inhofe admitted that he told his financial adviser to move him out of stocks and mutual funds in December 2019. If that’s not giving his adviser advice than what is? But whatever Inhofe, Burr or Feinstein did is perfectly reasonable, not based on their “inside” knowledge of the Covid-19 crisis but on their insights as investors to know when to buy or sell. Calling or Senators to resign because they made smart financial decisions in light of the Covid-19 crisis is preposterous, there’s no parallel to insider trading.
Chiming in on elected officials tweaking portfolios during the growing coronaviurs crisis, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) showed her disgust. “It is stomach-churning that the first thoughts of these Senators had to dire & classified $COVID briefing was how to profit off this crisis,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. Jumping on the bandwagon, liberal-and-conservatives can’t stop themselves from blaming anyone they can find. If elected officials like Ocasio-Cortez wanted to help constituents, they’d do everything to stop the mass hysteria over Covid-19 now threatening to send the nation into another Great Depression. However bad the spread of SARS CoV-2, it’s not worth destroying the U.S. economy. U.S. Senators or anyone else has the right to make informed investments. There’s simply no correlation to insider trading from anyone looking at a national or global health emergency.
