WASHINGTON — The Justice Department notified three senators on Tuesday that it will not pursue insider trading charges against them after an investigation into stock transactions from the early days of the coronavirus pandemic did not find sufficient evidence they had broken the law, according to a person briefed on the investigations and congressional aides.
The department contacted lawyers for Senators Kelly Loeffler, Republican of Georgia; James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma; and Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California. All three had sold substantial amounts of stock in late January or early February when lawmakers were being briefed on the novel coronavirus threat but before the pandemic began roiling financial markets or was fully understood by the public.
Law enforcement officials appear to still be investigating Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, whose own mid-February stock sales have drawn scrutiny from the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission. This month, F.B.I. agents seized Mr. Burr’s cellphone.
For the other senators, the notifications are likely to begin lifting suspicions that have lingered since mid-March, when they disclosed the trades in mandatory Senate filings. At a time when millions of Americans were losing their jobs and markets had plummeted, even the possibility that members of Congress had used their positions to protect themselves financially prompted cries for resignations and investigations.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. Aides to the senators confirmed the notification.
Though Ms. Loeffler, Ms. Feinstein and Mr. Inhofe had all denied they were personally involved in the investment transactions, much less directing them based on insider information, the F.B.I. had asked them to produce records and other information related to the sales.
Investigators’ decision not to pursue charges would be particularly welcome news for Ms. Loeffler, the only senator of the three up for election this year. Polling suggests that the swirling accusations of misconduct around her multimillion-dollar stock transactions had hurt her standing with Georgia voters at a time when Democrats and a fellow Republican are vying for her seat.
“Today’s clear exoneration by the Department of Justice affirms what Senator Loeffler has said all along — she did nothing wrong,” said Stephen Lawson, a spokesman for her campaign.
Mr. Inhofe told the Oklahoman newspaper that he was pleased the Justice Department had acknowledged he did “nothing wrong.” A spokesman for Ms. Feinstein did not immediately offer a comment.
The Justice Department typically informs lawmakers when they have closed investigation into their actions but can sometimes take weeks or months to do so, in part to account for the possibility that investigators could find new evidence that would prompt reopening any inquiry, former department employees said.
F.B.I. investigations into Senate or House candidates like Ms. Loeffler require written notification to Justice Department officials, according to a memo issued in February by Attorney General William P. Barr.
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Lawmakers can hold and trade stocks. But a 2012 law, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, bars members of Congress and their aides from making investment decisions based on inside information they have access to as part of their Senate work, including both criminal and civil penalties for violations. Legal experts say that determining what information is “nonpublic” can be exceedingly difficult; no one has been successfully prosecuted under the law.
There are also signs that the Senate Ethics Committee may be investigating the sales itself; the bipartisan panel works in secret.
The transactions under scrutiny by the Justice Department and S.E.C. all took place between late January and late February, around when government health and national security officials began warning lawmakers about what would become a full-blown national crisis in March. At that point, Republican senators and President Trump were mostly playing down the threat of the virus to Americans and financial markets were surging.
Ms. Loeffler and her husband, the financial executive Jeffrey C. Sprecher, reported transactions worth millions of dollars beginning in late January, right after senators received their first private briefing from top health officials on Covid-19. The sales included shares of Exxon Mobil, Ross Stores and AutoZone, which later lost value when the markets dropped. And the couple continued to trade in the weeks that followed as the effects of the virus spread.
Ms. Feinstein and her husband sold stock worth $1.5 million to $6 million in Allogene Therapeutics, a California-based biotech company, on Jan. 31 and Feb. 18, public disclosures show.
And Mr. Inhofe sold stock worth as much as $400,000 on Jan. 27, including shares in PayPal, Apple and Brookfield Asset Management, a real estate company.
All three denied any connection between the two events, and they said they left investment decisions to outside financial advisers who had made the trades without their knowledge. In the case of Mr. Inhofe, he did not even attend the January briefing, though as chairman of the Armed Services Committee he is regularly briefed on emerging threats, including pandemics.
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Updated May 26, 2020
How can I protect myself while flying?
If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)
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Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
How many people have lost their jobs due to coronavirus in the U.S.?
Over 38 million people have filed for unemployment since March. One in five who were working in February reported losing a job or being furloughed in March or the beginning of April, data from a Federal Reserve survey released on May 14 showed, and that pain was highly concentrated among low earners. Fully 39 percent of former workers living in a household earning $40,000 or less lost work, compared with 13 percent in those making more than $100,000, a Fed official said.
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The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.
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If you’re sick and you think you’ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’t be able to get tested.
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In an effort to tamp down questions about potential conflicts of interest, Ms. Loeffler decided in April to sell off all her shares in individual stocks and move the money to mutual and exchange-traded funds.
Mr. Burr’s case has always been different. It centers on his decision to sell 33 stock holdings collectively worth $628,000 to $1.7 million in mid-February. The sales represented a large portion of his holdings.
As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, he had greater access to government intelligence assessments on how the virus was affecting geopolitics. Unlike the other lawmakers, he has never denied that he arranged his stock sales himself or that he sold the shares out of concern the virus would tank global markets.
Rather, he has said that he made his investment decisions solely on public information, which is legal. And his legal adviser and allies have insisted that he will be proved innocent.
Making a case against him could be difficult, in part because members of Congress have broad speech and debate protections that could prevent investigators from questioning him about what he learned in nonpublic briefings on the virus.
Mr. Burr temporarily stepped down as chairman of the Intelligence Committee this month after the F.B.I. agents took his cellphone and obtained a search warrant for his electronic storage accounts. Because of Mr. Burr’s position, the move had to be approved by the highest levels of the Justice Department, which would mean Mr. Barr, a department official has said.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
