Richard Burr, some other senators sold lots of stock as virus fears started – By CBS/AP (CBS News) / March 20 2020
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., sold as much as $1.7 million in stocks just before the market dropped in February amid fears about the coronavirus outbreak, Senate records show.
Several other senators sold big stock stakes around the same time, Senate records reveal.
The documents show that Burr and his wife sold between roughly $600,000 and $1.7 million in 33 separate transactions in late January and mid-February, just before the market began to fall and as government health officials began to issue stark warnings about the effects of the virus. Several of the stocks were in companies that own hotels.
Burr’s stock sales were first reported by ProPublica and The Center for Responsive Politics. Most of them came on Feb. 13, just before Burr made a speech in his home state in which he predicted severe consequences from the virus, including closed schools and cutbacks in company travel, according to audio obtained by National Public Radio and released Thursday.
NPR said Burr told a small North Carolina audience the virus was “much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history” and “probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
Burr’s remarks were much more dire than remarks he had made publicly, and came as President Trump was still downplaying the severity of the virus.
There’s no indication that Burr had any inside information as he sold the stocks and issued the private warnings.
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