Reed and Whitehouse Refuse to Call for Probe of Senators Who Allegedly Traded on Coronavirus Info

Reed and Whitehouse Refuse to Call for Probe of Senators Who Allegedly Traded on Coronavirus Info

While hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their jobs, it is being alleged that four members of the United States Senate used information from Senate briefings and dumped stock to avoid the Wall Street crash caused by the impacts of coronavirus.

More than 36,000 have lost their jobs in Rhode Island in the past ten days and hundreds of thousands across the country have been laid-off. The layoffs are a stark juxtaposition to the allegations of the Senators who may have dumped millions of dollars in stocks after receiving closed-door briefings.

GoLocal reached out to Rhode Island Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse asking if the Senate Ethics Committee or the Securities and Exchange Commission should review the trades.

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Whitehouse did not respond to questions.

Reed, through his office, refused to answer questions about an independent review of the Senators by the Senate Ethics or the SEC.

“Senator Reed believes no one is above the law,” said Chip Unruh, Reed’s spokesperson.

Senators Under Scrutiny

“Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, and Kelly Loeffler, Republican of Georgia, are in the hot seat this week, facing questions about whether they misused their positions to shield their personal finances from the economic fallout of the pandemic, even as they misled the public about the severity of the crisis,” said the New York Times in an editorial.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has called for Burr’s resignation.

According to analyses of their disclosure reports filed with the Senate, the lawmakers each unloaded major stock holdings during the same period they were receiving closed-door briefings about the looming pandemic.

Bloomberg reports that “two other members of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, and Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, also sold stock after the briefings, according to financial records.”

In total, four members of the U.S. Senate dumped millions of dollars of stocks and avoided the 30% stock downturn most investors have suffered.

All four members under criticism have denied any improper activities. 

Loeffler tweeted calling the criticism of her stock sales “a ridiculous and baseless attack.” The tweet said “I do not make investment decisions for my portfolio. Investment decisions are made by multiple third-party advisors without my or my husband’s knowledge or involvement.”

And, while the members of the Senate avoided the losses, Goldman Sachs analysts predict weekly claims will skyrocket to 2.25 million by next Thursday,