Help Move Georgia Forward
Loeffler’s new disclosures reveal further sell-offs in a travel booking company just before the White House imposed travel restrictions as a Fox News host joins Republican calls for her resignation
ATLANTA — Unelected “political mega-donor” Senator Kelly Loeffler began her week facing a probe by the DOJ and the SEC into Senators’ stock trades along with new disclosures showing she sold off even more stock before the market tanked while investing “in a company that makes COVID-19 protective garments.” Now, Loeffler is closing out her week with new reporting showing that she also sold-off stock in a travel booking company just before the White House announced travel restrictions while Fox News host Tucker Carlson has joined a growing chorus calling for her resignation.
Loeffler’s scandal has already garnered bipartisan outrage along with scathing criticism from national and local editorial boards like the Savannah Morning News, even as Loeffler herself refuses to follow Senator Richard Burr’s example and call for a Senate Ethics Committee Investigation.
New details in Loeffler’s scandal are emerging almost daily since the first reports broke two weeks ago that Loeffler was selling off stock while claiming that “the economy is strong.” To keep track of Loeffler’s spiraling stock sell-off scandal, the Democratic Party of Georgia has released a new video breaking down coverage of Loeffler’s “unseemly” stock trading and is keeping an updated timeline outlining the latest in Loeffler’s scandal, including today’s news:
January 24th: Loeffler’s Senate HELP Committee hosts a private all-Senate briefing on the coronavirus threat — the same day as her first reported joint stock sale.
SELL – January 31st: Loeffler’s husband dumps nearly $100,000 worth of retail stocks — one of their first major sell-offs in the retail industry ahead of a nationwide downturn.
BUY – February 14th: Loeffler buys $168,000 of stock in Citrix Systems, Inc., a teleworking software company, along with another $168,000 in Oracle, which will go on to work with the federal government to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
SELL – February 26th: Loeffler’s husband and New York Stock Exchange Chairman Jeffrey Sprecher sells off $3.5 million worth of stock in their company ICE, just over 30 days after Loeffler’s private Senate briefing — the amount of notice ICE requires executives to give before buying or selling shares.
BUY – February 28th: Loeffler’s husband buys over $100,000 worth of stock in DuPont, “a company that makes COVID-19 protective garments.” Over the next few weeks, her husband will buy another $100,000 worth of DuPont stock while Loeffler still downplays the coronavirus threat.
BUY – March 6th: Loeffler and her husband buy $46,000 worth of stock in a travel booking company the day she traveled with President Donald Trump to the CDC.
BUY AND SELL – March 10th: Loeffler claims “the economy is strong” and “jobs are growing” even after she and her husband dumped stocks — and the very same day her husband makes another $12,000 purchase of DuPont stock and they begin selling off stock in a travel booking company she bought only days before.
SELL – March 11th: Loeffler and Sprecher sell off another $15.3 million worth of ICE shares and unload the rest of their stock in a travel booking company — just as Trump announces air travel restrictions right after the markets close.
March 20th: As the Daily Beast breaks the news of Loeffler’s stock sell-off scandal, one Republican candidate openly calls for her resignation and calls her “unfit to represent Georgia” as Republican House Speaker David Ralston expresses worries about “down-ticket damage.”
March 21st: The New York Times editorial board calls for the Senate to launch a full ethics investigation “and, if warranted…criminal prosecution” against Loeffler, and the Savannah Morning News decries her “potential illicit profiteering” and says the “Justice Department and…Securities and Exchange Commission should get involved.”
March 23rd: The SEC issues “a sharp warning” against using “nonpublic information” to trade on the coronavirus outbreak while refusing to comment on whether Loeffler and Sprecher are under investigation — the same day that Mitch McConnell’s super PAC, which had previously spent to boost Loeffler, leaves Georgia off its list of ad buys.
March 27th: Even more members of Loeffler’s own party distance themselves from her, with one prominent conservative calling the accusations against her “very relevant.” Outside Republican groups that previously backed Loeffler, meanwhile, “are now turning their attention elsewhere at a pivotal moment in her campaign.”
March 29th: A new report reveals the DOJ and the SEC have launched a probe into lawmakers’ stock transactions during the coronavirus outbreak, coming nearly a week after the SEC issued a warning against insider trading during the pandemic and refused to state whether Loeffler and her husband were under investigation.
March 31st: New disclosures reveal even more stock sell-offs by Loeffler and her husband while she continued to downplay the threat of coronavirus — and show investments made “in a company that makes COVID-19 protective garments.”
April 2nd: As news breaks about Loeffler’s travel booking company sell-offs, Fox News host Tucker Carlson joins a bipartisan chorus calling for her resignation.
Read the latest coverage about Loeffler’s stock sell-off scandal:
###
December 12, 2024
December 9, 2024
December 5, 2024