DOJ ends coronavirus insider trading investigations into 3 senators but continues probing Richard Burr

The Justice Department has notified lawyers for Senators Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, Dianne Feinstein of California and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma that it will not charge the lawmakers with insider trading for stock sales they or their family members made shortly after some had attended non-public intelligence briefings about the coronavirus crisis earlier this year.

The DOJ appears to still be probing transactions executed in February by Senator Richard Burr, who stepped down as Intelligence chairman last week after it was reported in March he sold off up to $1.7m in individual stocks after he had begun receiving classified briefings about Covid-19 but weeks before global markets plummeted due to uncertainty about the disease.

A source close to Ms Feinstein confirmed other outlets' earlier reports that the DOJ was closing its investigation into her and her husband's investment portfolios.

Spokespersons for Ms Loeffler and Mr Inhofe could not immediately be reached for comment for this story.

Mr Burr's office declined to comment.

The North Carolina Republican was the only one of the four lawmakers under investigation for their stock sales to acknowledge personally executing the transactions in question.

He turned over his cell phone to investigators earlier this month.

Mr Burr told reporters on Thursday that the ongoing probe into his stock sales had become "a distraction" to the intelligence panel's work.

The committee oversees the US intelligence apparatus — including the office of the director of national intelligence, the CIA, and the National Security Agency, among other agencies — and has spent the bulk of Donald Trump's first term probing Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Obama administration's counterintelligence efforts against such interference.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was named chairman on an interim basis.

Mr Burr attended a closed-doors, open-to-all-senators briefing for the Senate Health Committee on 24 January where infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci and Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield apprised lawmakers of the latest government reports from the coronavirus outbreak in China’s Wuhan province.

As chairman of the intel panel, Mr Burr also had access to non-public reports about the coronavirus during that time, though it is unclear whether the US intelligence agencies that compiled those reports were providing information that couldn’t be cobbled together from public reporting.

On 13 February, three weeks after the initial 24 January briefing, Mr Burr sold off 33 stocks worth between $628,033 and $1.72m — his largest sell-off of assets in at least 14 months.

That sell-off included $250,000 worth of stocks in hotel companies that have seen their value plummet to more than half their value at points during the economic shutdown.

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