FBI serves Sen. Burr warrant, takes cell phone in stock sale investigation, report says
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr turned his cell phone over Wednesday night to FBI agents amid an investigation into stock sales he made in February, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Burr, a North Carolina Republican and the chairman of the Senate’s intelligence committee, was served a search warrant at his Washington, D.C.-area residence, according to the LA Times, which cited a law enforcement official.
Burr’s office declined to comment on the report when contacted by McClatchy late Wednesday night.
Citing the law enforcement official, The LA Times reported that the Justice Department is “examining Burr’s communications with his broker.”
Burr sold up to $1.7 million in stocks in early and mid-February, according to a Senate disclosure that he filed. Burr is a member of the Senate’s health committee and had received briefings about the status of the virus, which had not yet made a large impact in the United States.
On Feb. 7, he co-wrote a column reassuring Americans that the the country was “better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats.”
As of May 13, more than 80,000 people have died in the country from COVID-19, which has also wrecked the nation’s economy and led to record unemployment.
But that month, Burr had concerns about the virus. He told a group during a private luncheon on Feb. 27, that the virus was very dangerous, according to audio of the remarks obtained by NPR.
“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” he said. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
The 2012 STOCK Act prohibits profiting off “any nonpublic information derived from their positions as Members or congressional employees,” according to a Library of Congress summary. Burr was one of three senators to vote against the bill.
Burr said he made his decision to sell stocks based on publicly available media reports, not on closed intelligence briefings. He asked the Senate Ethics Committee for a “complete review” a day after ProPublica and the Center for Responsive Politics first reported on the stock sales.
“The law is clear that any American — including a Senator — may participate in the stock market based on public information, as Senator Burr did,” said Alice Fisher, a former U.S. assistant attorney general who is advising Burr, in a statement in late March.
“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. Senator Burr welcomes a thorough review of the facts in this matter, which will establish that his actions were appropriate.”
Burr, 64, is in his third term in the U.S. Senate. He has said on several occasions that he would not run for re-election in 2022.
ProPublica reported last week that Gerald Fauth, Burr’s brother-in-law, sold up to $280,000 worth of stock on Feb. 13, the same day as Burr’s stock sales. Fauth is a Trump appointee to the National Mediation Board.
“Senator Burr participated in the stock market based on public information and he did not coordinate his decision to trade on Feb. 13 with Mr. Fauth,” Fisher said in an emailed statement May 6.
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This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 10:51 PM with the headline "FBI serves Sen. Burr warrant, takes cell phone in stock sale investigation, report says."
