Senator Sold Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars in Stocks After Suggesting U.S. Was Prepared for CoronavirusTwo weeks after the sales, Senator Richard Burr warned a nonpartisan group that the virus could soon cause a major disruption in the United States.
WASHINGTON — Senator Richard M. Burr sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock in major companies last month, as President Trump and others in his party were still playing down the threat presented by the coronavirus outbreak and before the stock market’s precipitous plunge.
The stocks were sold in mid-February, days after Mr. Burr, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, wrote an opinion piece for Fox News suggesting that the United States was “better prepared than ever before” to confront the virus.
Two weeks after the sales, Mr. Burr spoke at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington to a nonpartisan group called the Tar Heel Club, warning that the virus could soon cause a major disruption in the United States.
The gathering, which drew fewer than 100 people, included representatives from the North Carolina governor’s office, as well as staff members from other congressional offices in the state.
“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this — it is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything we have seen in recent history,” Mr. Burr said, according to a recording obtained by NPR, which reported on his remarks on Thursday. “It’s probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/richard-burr-coronavirus-stocks.html
