Last Updated on March 20, 2020
Georgia establishment Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler is trying to explain away her insider trading scandal amid revelations that she dumped up to $3.1 million in stock immediately after getting briefed on the incoming Coronavirus pandemic threat — and likely stock market collapse — in a January 24 committee briefing for senators.
Loeffler’s explanation does not meet the threshold of credibility.
As reporter Sam Stein observed, “She had NO stock transactions reported at all prior to the very day of the briefing…Her portfolio sold 19 stocks and only bought 2…The stocks she did buy were in telecom, which stood to benefit from millions of people being forced to WFH (work from home).”
Loeffler is garnering even more heat now, including from the Right. Loeffler is running against President Trump’s original choice for her Senate seat, Rep. Doug Collins, in the current Georgia Senate primary. America First Republican U.S. House candidate Mark Gonsalves called Friday for Loeffler to resign.
Republican House candidate calls for Loeffler to resign. This will only get worse for her. Internal polling shows her down 14 among Republicans to Doug Collins BEFORE this massive scandalhttps://t.co/k35r1rNnXN
— Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) March 20, 2020
California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and Richard Burr of North Carolina are implicated in the Coronavirus insider trading scandal. Each of these senators dumped stock after obtaining inside briefing information on the Coronavirus outbreak, which they knew would likely become a public health and economic catastrophe, tanking the stock market.
#LockThemAllUp was trending on Twitter as news surfaced about the senators’ shockingly cynical manipulations.
As a journalist, I was instrumental in Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s victory over Stacey Abrams in the gubernatorial race when I busted Abrams’ vote-stealing tactics and shady factors favoring her including shenanigans in Fulton County where a massive number of duplicate ballots surfaced and non-citizens were trying to vote.
Kemp then betrayed the tea party and appointed establishment oligarch Loeffler, wife of the CEO of the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, to the open U.S. Senate seat over conservative Doug Collins, who is running for the Senate currently against Loeffler.
“People are losing their jobs, their businesses, their retirements, and even their lives and Kelly Loeffler is profiting off their pain? I’m sickened just thinking about it,” Rep. Doug Collins said in a statement provided to National File.
The Daily Beast reports: “The Senate’s newest member sold off seven figures’ worth of stock holdings in the days and weeks after a private, all-senators meeting on the novel coronavirus that subsequently hammered U.S. equities.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on the coronavirus.
“Appreciate today’s briefing from the President’s top health officials on the novel coronavirus outbreak,” she tweeted about the briefing at the time.
That first transaction was a sale of stock in the company Resideo Technologies valued at between $50,001 and $100,000. The company’s stock price has fallen by more than half since then, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average overall has shed approximately 10,000 points, dropping about a third of its value.”
Daily Beast passage ends