NEW: Loeffler Sent Non-Public Letter “Aligned with Her Personal Financial Interests” — And “Selling Out the Interests of Constituents”

Loeffler opposed a suspension on negative credit reporting after her and her husband’s firm “stood to be hurt by the proposal” ahead of a $10 billion acquisition

ATLANTA — A new investigation today from The Daily Beast’s Sam Brodey reveals that unelected “political mega-donor” Senator Kelly Loeffler put her name on a secretive letter that “helped set [the] stage for husband’s $10 billion deal” — even as it came at the cost of potentially “selling out the interests of constituents.”

While Loeffler was  fighting efforts to “suspend negative credit score reporting in the wake of COVID-19’s economic impact,” Loeffler and her husband Jeff Sprecher’s firm ICE was expanding its investments in the mortgage industry, including “a $10 billion acquisition of home loan data giant Ellie Mae, which had stood to be hurt by the proposal for a credit reporting moratorium.”

Ethics watchdog groups noted that this latest conflict of interest “could have been an instance of her selling out the interests of constituents who were in economic distress in order to maintain the value of her stock portfolio.”

And this latest scandal comes after Loeffler was already caught double-talking on China after her official position conflicted with ICE’s profit margin — not to mention her infamous coronavirus stock trading scandal. In the words of one good government expert, when it comes to Loeffler, “it seems the conflicts never end.”

“This latest report once again shows that Senator Kelly Loeffler will always put her financial interests first in Washington — not hardworking Georgia families,” said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “At a time when Georgians were crying out for relief, Senator Loeffler was more focused on protecting her company’s bottom line in the middle of a pandemic.”

Read more on Loeffler’s latest conflict of interest on coronavirus relief:

The Daily Beast: Kelly Loeffler’s Letter Helped Set Stage for Husband’s $10 Billion Deal

• Shortly after she signed the letter [to financial regulators in May urging them not to make changes to consumer credit reporting requirements during the pandemic], its purpose became neatly aligned with her personal financial interests as well. 

• In August, Intercontinental Exchange—the company run by Loeffler’s husband, Jeffrey Sprecher—announced a $10 billion acquisition of home loan data giant Ellie Mae, which had stood to be hurt by the proposal for a credit reporting moratorium.

• Loeffler was a former executive at ICE and retains some $9 million worth of stock in it and in signing that letter she added yet another chapter to an already complicated web of financial interests and official policymaking actions that have marked her short time in office.

• Like some of those prior chapters, this one almost never became public.

• When Loeffler signed on to the letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Housing Finance Authority, she did not publicize it. Nor did she send a press release on it or put up a tweet about it. It was obtained by The Daily Beast in December.

• But Loeffler’s involvement in the credit reporting issue was notable not just because of the secrecy of it. Financial regulation is not in the senator’s portfolio.

• Among the 11 GOP senators who signed the May letter, she was one of two who did not sit on the Senate Banking Committee.

• Loeffler’s campaign declined to comment on her reasons for joining the credit reporting push, or whether she knew about ICE’s acquisition of Ellie Mae before it was announced. But good government groups say the dots connect in a damaging direction.

• “We don’t know why she signed this letter,” said Jordan Libowitz of the nonpartisan ethics watchdog group CREW, “but we should not need to wonder whether it could have been an instance of her selling out the interests of constituents who were in economic distress in order to maintain the value of her stock portfolio.”

• At around the same time, Sprecher bought Ellie Mae with a vow to put that company’s data under ICE’s roof in order to make it, in his words, “the de facto source of information for the U.S. mortgage market.”

• A credit moratorium would have been damaging for ICE too, in that it would have made much of that data useless to possible clients until any such moratorium was lifted.

• Loeffler seemed to recognize that being perceived as against helping consumers with their credit scores during the pandemic carried some political costs. Not only did she keep her signature on the letter secret, she also introduced a bill in June that would have stopped credit reporting agencies from including medical debts on a person’s credit report, in the event of “unconscionably excessive” medical costs.

• Those who advocate for good governance say the lengthy web of financial entanglements that she and her family have created a myriad of problems and potential conflicts of interest.

• “It seems the conflicts never end,” said [nonpartisan good government group Issue One Meredith] McGehee in an email. “Undoubtedly, many of these conflicts arise because of the vast wealth of Sen. Loeffler and her husband. But it is notable that other wealthy senators have navigated these issues with more care and finesse.”

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