Three of the four senators under investigation for insider trading have had their charges dismissed by the Justice Department on Tuesday, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Defense attorneys for Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and James Inhofe R-Okla. were alerted by prosecutors that the investigation into their trading would be closed.
An investigation into the senators’ trades was opened two months ago by the Federal Bureau of Investigations after reports surfaced that several members of Congress, their spouses, or investment advisers offloaded large amounts of stock after early briefings on the coronavirus pandemic.
With the considerable decline in the stock market, all the lawmakers saved hundreds of thousands of dollars but selling the stocks early on in the pandemic.
All of the senators have denied any involvement in insider trading. Feinstein, Loeffler, and Inhofe maintain that they had no idea about the trades until after the fact, that the trades were made through their investment advisers.
“Today’s clear exoneration by the Department of Justice affirms what Senator Loeffler has said all along— she did nothing wrong, This was a politically-motivated attack shamelessly promoted by the fake news media and her political opponents,” spokesman Stephen Lawson said on behalf of Kelly Loeffler said.
The fourth senator, Senator Richard Burr, R-N.C, is still under investigation after he dumped almost $1.7 million worth of shares that he owns with his wife back in February. Burr was asked to step down as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pending the outcome of the investigation after the FBI seized his cellphone earlier this month.
Burr maintains that he did not use insider information and instead relied on public news reports to guide his trading.
He has asked the chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee to review his sale of the stocks.
