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From the "We Have Your Backs" Department

From the DailyBeast: Sen. Kelly Loeffler Dumped Millions in Stock After Coronavirus Briefing. (Sens. Burr and Inhofe also. Loeffler is married to Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and the chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, which is NYSE's parent company.)

From The Week: Senate Intelligence Chair unloaded stocks after reassuring public about coronavirus preparedness.

Daily Beast article here

The Week Article Here

Comments

  • Is it the same as insider trading? Martha Stewart went to jail for doing exactly that.
  • Burr and Loeffler are up for reelection this year

    I suspect that Loeffler will get the boot.
  • Howdy,

    Come on people, you know that 90% of all politicians are corrupt before they are elected and 90% that aren't become so in their first term. That leaves 1% that are worth a shit.'

    I hope and pray they ALL come down with the virus and let God sort them out.

    Oh, and before someone goes off on me I AM AN ELECTED REPUBLICAN albeit a Township Trustee.

    And so it goes,

    peace and Flatten the Curve,

    rono
  • In stark contrast this is how it's supposed to be done:

    Stories of Hope
  • Both Senators Loeffler and Feinstein have their investments in blind trusts. (See NY Times.)
    The same can not to my knowledge be said for Sen. Burr - who also stated publicly that there was no need to worry (while he was busy selling.)
  • edited March 2020
    @rono
    Come on people, you know that 90% of all politicians are corrupt before they are elected and 90% that aren't become so in their first term.
    That's too reductive and really what certain members of one party seeking to subvert our democratic republic want you to believe. Things aren't black and white and there are scales of corruption. To say oh they're all corrupt and the system's completely rigged is the reason why so many Americans don't vote, which is what the plutocrats who run things now want. In other words, yes there's corruption and every politician--and let's be honest, every person on earth--lies periodically, but the corruption in today's GOP and in the Whitehouse in particular is an order of magnitude of the other side's. It's also funny to me to hear people moan about politicians lying. How many CEOs do you think lie routinely and are corrupt, yet we happily hand our money over to them, buying their products and investing in the shares of their companies? I'd rather have a democratically elected politician who lies periodically than a lying corrupt CEO put in power by his buddies on his company's board of directors any day of the week.
  • edited March 2020
    @NumbersGal - please point us to the NY Times article showing Loefflers investments being sold from a blind trust. All I've been able to find is an opinion piece.

    Edit: AND I did search for something/anything similar prior to my original post.
  • Mark said:

    @NumbersGal - please point us to the NY Times article showing Loefflers investments being sold from a blind trust. All I've been able to find is an opinion piece.

    Edit: AND I did search for something/anything similar prior to my original post.

    She just said on CNBC that her investments, for years, have sat in a blind trust so she has zero discretion on any investment activity.
  • The world waits for proof of that statement. You see who her husband is right?
  • I'm no expert on "Blind Trusts", but in the case, the real question is did they instruct a "blind sell order"?
  • OK, I don't live in the world of blind trusts. What keeps her from putting a bug in the ear of someone close to, involved in or associated with the management of the trust? You know cocktail conversation, golfing gossip, warning to friends, etc. Is the power of attorney to her affairs kept from her?
  • edited March 2020
    The trust may be "blind" but it likely has a phone number. Is it deaf?
  • @OJ - I have no idea if her husband is either blind or deaf. I am curious to know who manages the portfolio or blind trust however.
  • edited March 2020
    In fairness, my "blind/deaf" comment applies equally to all of them, including Senator Feinstein, who I have always admired as far as professionalism, intellect, and devotion to public service.

    Full disclosure: When she was our mayor, the first year that I installed all of the public safety radio equipment in her City limo she sent me a bottle of decent wine. The second year, she sent the limo back for modification, because the radio equipment as positioned put runs in her nylons. No wine, that time. :(


  • Few years back I recall someone bringing a bill to congress which would make it illegal for members of Congress to trade on insider information. The bill was soundly defeated.

    First, the fact that someone even had to bring such a bill to Congress. Suggests what's illegal for the common man may not be illegal for Congressmen. Maybe there are some laws that only apply to members of Congress and therefore some laws don't apply automatically to them unless they are also explicitly ratified.

    Second, maybe the bill was brought to Congress only to be defeated so that now we accept that it's not illegal for them to trade based on insider information, but merely "unethical" which means diddly.

    The people to blame are the people who elect these people to office. Accept it.

    As an aside, if the Congressmen had simply bought some PUTs and then sold them, would anyone have discovered them? Maybe the 4 congressmen are stupid and shameless or both, and there are the rest are only shameless, but we don't know about them because we cannot "see" if they sold any stock, because they profited differently from the stock market decline.
  • This is odious, and should be highly publicized.

    In the end, I'm an equal opportunity cynic when it comes to politicians. I really don't think DEMs in their own way are much more pure than REPs; or vice versa.

  • @Shostakovich- well, that makes at least two of us.
  • Mark - This article https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/politics/kelly-loeffler-richard-burr-insider-trading.html?searchResultPosition=1 refers to Sen. Feinstein's office stating that her investments are in a blind trust. (There's a link.) Not sure about a link from Sen. Loeffler. Both senators are married to wealthy investors.
  • Thanks NumbersGal. I have been following that and other sources. I'm inclined to wait for further confirmation on these activities before blowing my cool but they still sure seem smelly at this juncture. In Sen. Feinstein's defense at least she wasn't telling anyone that all is well and the situation is under control.
  • Mark - This article https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/us/politics/kelly-loeffler-richard-burr-insider-trading.html?searchResultPosition=1 refers to Sen. Feinstein's office stating that her investments are in a blind trust. (There's a link.) Not sure about a link from Sen. Loeffler. Both senators are married to wealthy investors.

    By Loeffler's own admission, her holdings are not in a blind trust. She is routinely told what she owns (independent of whether it is in a trust).

    I was informed of these purchases and sales on February 16, 2020 — three weeks after they were made.”

    She says that she is not involved in the trades made. That's effectively the same you as putting your holdings into a traditional discretionary account. "Not involved in the trades" says only that she is not the one making the trading decisions.

    The intelligence community provides the President raw data while not getting involved in policy decisions. Likewise, her statement allows for the possibility that she passed "secret" (non-public) information to her portfolio managers who were the only ones involved in making the "policy" (trade) decisions.

    This is also a concern about Feinstein's disclaimer. She too says that she was not involved in the trade decisions.

    "Ms. Feinstein’s office said her assets were in a blind trust and she was not involved in her husband’s financial decisions."

    IMHO one should assume that all statements are carefully crafted by lawyers and one should pay as much attention to what is not said as to what is stated.
  • edited March 2020
    "one should assume that all statements are carefully crafted by lawyers and one should pay as much attention to what is not said as to what is stated"

    Amen !!
  • The trust may be "blind" but it likely has a phone number. Is it deaf?
    DOJ can ask for her phone record unless she use a dropbox like in Mission Impossible.
  • edited March 2020



    In the end, I'm an equal opportunity cynic when it comes to politicians. I really don't think DEMs in their own way are much more pure than REPs; or vice versa.

    oh, they are, they are, by a country mile
  • Few years back I recall someone bringing a bill to congress which would make it illegal for members of Congress to trade on insider information. The bill was soundly defeated.

    STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) became law in 2012. It was subsequently modified to make enforcement more difficult, but as of now it is still illegal for members of Congress to trade on insider information.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how-congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law

  • which this is demonstrably probably not, right?
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