Bill Barr’s Dept. of Justice has closed the file on U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, refusing to prosecute the Republican from Georgia accused of insider trading. Loeffler, who is in an increasingly desperate election bid, was accused of selling millions of dollars in stocks after receiving confidential information on the impending coronavirus pandemic before it tanked the markets.
The FBI was looking into stock trades of Sen. Loeffler, along with those of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Sen. Richard Burr (D-NC). All investigations except for the one into Senator Burr have been dropped, The Wall Street Journal reports.
All three Senators whose cases were dropped have said their investment advisors made the trades without their prior knowledge.
Loeffler was appointed to her seat in January by Gov. Brian Kemp to complete the term of Senator Johnny Isakson, who resigned. She is down in the polls. Her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). He gave Trump’s Super PAC a $1 million check last week. The couple reportedly have donated $3.2 million to political campaigns, mostly Republican.
“Loeffler and her husband sold 27 stocks between January 24 and February 14 at a value of $1.28 million and $3.1 million, according to Senate financial disclosure records,” CNN reported in March. “They also purchased three stocks for between $450,000 to $1 million, including shares in Citrix, a software company used for teleconferencing that’s one of the few that’s gained value amid the coronavirus outbreak.”
Her husband “recently acquired as much as $415,000 in stock in DuPont de Nemours, a chemical company that manufactures protective equipment in exceedingly high demand because of the coronavirus pandemic,” the AP reported last month.