FACT CHECK: Loeffler HAS NOT Divested from All Individual Stocks

Despite claiming “my family will divest from individual stocks,” Loeffler’s disclosure reveals she still holds millions in ICE shares

Ethics watchdog: “Maintaining investments in ICE is not in compliance with Loeffler’s pledge.”

ATLANTA — Today, a new Roll Call report showed that despite unelected “political mega-donor” Senator Kelly Loeffler’s earlier promise that “my family will divest from individual stocks” in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, she still holds up to $25 million worth of stock in her company ICE — and her husband NYSE Chairman Jeff Sprecher still holds “at least $10 million” in ICE securities as well.

Loeffler has been dodging questions and refusing to call for a Senate Ethics Committee investigation for weeks now as she used her pledge to sell off individual stocks as cover for her scandal. But she couldn’t even fulfill those basic requirements. Craig Holman of ethics watchdog group Public Citizen put it bluntly: “Maintaining investments in ICE is not in compliance with Loeffler’s pledge.”

Now, as she continues to blame everyone and everything but herself for her stock trading scandal with a new $4 million ad campaign, Loeffler still won’t be honest with Georgians about her financial portfolio.

“The fact that Senator Kelly Loeffler still won’t divest from all individual stocks after her scandal is yet another reason why Georgians don’t trust her,” said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “Not only did Loeffler refuse to put her assets in a blind trust like her predecessor Senator Johnny Isakson, she couldn’t even keep her lesser pledge to sell off all her individual stocks.”

Read more about Loeffler “banking on the bank” instead of Georgians:

Roll Call: Loeffler still owns millions in individual company stock

• Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who has been scrutinized for stock trades she made after a private briefing on the coronavirus, hung on to millions in corporate securities, her most recent financial filing shows.

• The Georgia Republican holds between $5 million and $25 million in Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) corporate securities stock, a company led by her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher. Loeffler — who receives equity compensation from ICE — made between $1 million and $5 million in capital gains and dividends from her ICE holdings, her filing shows. Sprecher, who also chairs the New York Stock Exchange, has at least $10 million in ICE securities stock and options.

• The subhead in [Loeffler’s op-ed in] the Wall Street Journal reads: “But to end the distraction, my family will divest from individual stocks.”

• “ICE stocks do not qualify as a diverse mutual fund. It is a single company, based largely on the fortunes of the banking and investment industries. In fact, when it comes to Loeffler, it is a family corporation,” [Public Citizen’s Craig] Holman said in a statement to CQ Roll Call. 

• [Holman:] “Maintaining investments in ICE is not in compliance with Loeffler’s pledge to divest from individual stocks. ICE stocks pose the exact same conflicts of interest posed by Loeffler’s other individual stock investments. She is banking on the bank and investment industries, not the well-being of the economy as a whole.”

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