Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) leaves the U.S. Capitol after voting in Washington, USA, on May 14, 2020.
Erin Scott | Reuters
The Justice Department will not criminally prosecute Senator Richard Burr in connection with the stock negotiations that the North Carolina Republican carried out following being informed about Covid-19 last year, just before the coronavirus pandemic shook the US economy. USA.
Burr’s investigation included the highly unusual seizure of his cell phone by the FBI in May, and led to his resignation as chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee that same month.
“Tonight, the Justice Department informed me that it completed its review of my personal financial transactions conducted at the beginning of last year,” said Burr in a statement late on Tuesday.
“The case is now closed. I am happy to hear that. My focus has been and will continue to be working for the people of North Carolina during this difficult period for our nation,” said Burr.
DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
But a DOJ official confirmed to NBC News that the investigation was closed.
The news came last night from President Donald Trump in office.
The closure of the investigation puts an apparent end to a controversy that broke out last March, when the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic began to hit the United States.
Burr was one of several senators who were surprised by the stock talks on their accounts after receiving information that warned of the potential effects of Covid, but before the pandemic began to spread rapidly.
But unlike the other senators, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, Dianne Feinstein of California and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Burr did not deny that he decided to sell the shares himself, or that concerns about the coronavirus were his main motivation for the sale.
Only Burr was the subject of a criminal investigation supported by the DOJ for his stock negotiations. The other three, who, like Burr, denied any wrongdoing, were told in May that they would not face criminal charges.
Members of Congress are legally prohibited from using non-public information obtained through their official positions to personally profit from the stock market.
The STOCK Act that codified this ban was signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, after passing the Senate by 96 votes to 3. Burr was one of the three “no” votes in that law
As president of Intelligence, Burr had access in January and February 2020 to confidential intelligence reports that contained severe warnings about the coronavirus.
On February 13 of last year, Burr discharged shares in the amount of $ 630,000 to $ 1.7 million, with 33 individual trades made on that single day. The shares he sold represented a significant part of his financial portfolio.
A week later, the stock markets began to plummet for fear that the pandemic would hurt the global economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 30% of its value in the weeks following Burr’s trades.
ProPublica reported that on the day Burr sold his shares, his brother-in-law Gerald Fauth sold tens of thousands of dollars in shares.
Fauth was appointed by Trump in 2017 to a seat on the three-member National Mediation Council, a federal agency that helps facilitate working relationships for the transportation industry.
At the time of the ProPublica report, Burr’s lawyer, Alice Fisher, told the news agency that Burr “did not coordinate his decision to negotiate” with Fauth.
“From the beginning, Senator Burr has focused on an appropriate and thorough review of the facts on this issue, which will establish that his actions were appropriate,” said Fisher at the time.
Burr, in late March, said: “I relied only on public news to guide my decision regarding the sale of shares.”
“Specifically, I followed CNBC’s daily health and science reports from its offices in Asia at the time,” he said.