Senate Intelligence Chairman Served FBI Search Warrant Over Stock Trades, Report Says | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

The author of this post is Eric Quintanar.

    Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has been served with an FBI search warrant in connection with dozens of stock trades he made on February 13, before the widespread stay-at-home orders took place.

    According to the Los Angeles Times, the FBI visited the senator at his residence around the nation's capital, where he turned over his cell phone. The Times reported no other details about the warrant at the time of publishing, and spoke with a law enforcement official on the condition of anonymity.

    Los Angeles Times reporter Del Quentin Wilber has since stated that the FBI also issued a warrant to Apple in order to get information from the senator's iCloud account.

    Information about Burr's stock activities was unearthed in late March by ProPublica, which reported that the senator and his wife "sold off a significant percentage of his stocks" over the course of 33 transactions in a single day.

    From the single day of trading, the news agency discovered Burr had unloaded between $628,000 and $1.72 million in holdings.

    A financial filing obtained by The New York Times notes that Burr sold off between $15,001 to $50,000 in holdings of Extended Stay America and $50,001 to $100,000 in holdings of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

    In a statement to the Associated Press, Alice Fisher, an attorney for Burr, said "the law is clear that any American - including a Senator - may participate in the stock market based on public information."

    "When this issue arose, Senator Burr immediately asked the Senate Ethics Committee to conduct a complete review, and he will cooperate with that review as well as any other appropriate inquiry," said Fisher. "Senator Burr welcomes a thorough review of the facts in this matter, which will establish that his actions were appropriate."

    AP reports that Burr has acknowledged his stock sales were related to the coronavirus, but maintains he only used public information to guide his financial decisions, specifically referencing CNBC daily health and science reporting.

    As The Daily Wire previously reported, Burr was among three other senators who received heat after reports emerged they sold off holdings before the stock market began to fall. The other senators included Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), and James Inhofe (R-OK).

    A spokesperson for Feinstein told The New York Times in March that all of the senator's "assets are in a blind trust," and that she has "no involvement in her husband's financial decisions." Inhofe told ABC-5 in March that he's been gradually divesting from stocks over the last 15 months.

    Loeffler also responded to the allegations in March, saying she was informed of the stock activity three weeks after it happened: "This is a ridiculous and baseless attack. 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.