Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, was at the center of a scandal in March. It was revealed he sold off stock shares after hearing projections regarding the then-novel coronavirus. This was well before the country entered lockdowns and other measures meant to combat the virus. Many have accused Burr of engaging in a form of insider trading in this incident.
Underscoring these suspicions, the FBI has seized Burr’s cellphone. The senator served a search warrant by federal agents on Wednesday at his home in Washington DC. The warrant and search were first reported in the Los Angeles Times. According to sources close to the case, the government is reviewing correspondence between Burr and his stock broker.
Senator Burr, for his own part, has denied any and all wrongdoing in the case. He has requested an ethics review of the stock sales. However, federal law enforcement is reviewing the case as a criminal investigation, not an ethics review. Burr, along with a handful of other senators, sold off stocks early in the coronavirus outbreak.
According to records, Burr may have sold as much as $1.7 million in stocks. This came in late January to mid-February. Only a few short weeks before the mid-March crash of the stock market as the country reeled from the sudden impact of the virus. Senate records seem to show Burr and his wife making around 30 sales in this time frame.
Notably, many of the stocks Burr sold off were in companies that own hotels. Unsurprisingly, hotels have been among the hardest-hit sectors during sweeping stay-at-home orders. Burr’s sales following a series of Senate briefings on the virus have raised eyebrows. For his own part, the Republican Senator admits that he sold the stocks in light of COVID-19. However, he claims to have only let public news reports guide his sales.
The seizure of Burr’s phone could indicate he is in serious hot water. Whether he stores his texts or emails in enterprise cloud storage or on his phone, it won’t be difficult for federal agents to find it. If he is found to have used non-public knowledge to conduct stock market trading, he could spend time in prison.
Other Senators accused of similar wrongdoing, like Kelly Loeffler, a Republican from Georgia, have also denied any criminal element of the stock sales. Loeffler stated at the time of the news breaking that she was only made aware of stock sales on her behalf after the fact. She claimed that the activity was “very routine” for her portfolio.
