"If you paid up to $10,000 for membership and have a
history of donating to Richard Burr, you would have
received significant insight about COVID-19 by Feb
27."
By Julia ConleyMarch 19, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - A look at financial records reveal that Senate
Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr
last month—just as he was big-dollar donors, but
not the general public about the looming threat of
the coronavirus—personal stock holdings worth
hundreds of thousands of dollars, many of them in
industries now seriously impacted by the outbreak.
According to Open Secrets:
Burr and his wife Brooke sold between
$581,000 and $1.5 million in publicly traded
stocks on Feb. 13 and didn’t buy any new
positions, according to a
recent financial disclosure filed with the
Senate.
Around the time that Burr sold his shares of
major corporations, including several hard hit
hotel companies, he publicly
expressed confidence about the U.S.
government's ability to fight the virus. However
in late February, Burr
privately warned that the virus is "much
more aggressive in its transmission than
anything that we have seen in recent history,"
according to a recording obtained by NPR.
Between the Burrs’ two accounts, they sold up
to $150,000 worth of stock in
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, which lost almost
two-thirds of its market value since Feb. 13.
They sold up to $150,000 in Extended
Stay America, another hotel company that lost
half its value over the last month. Burr
also sold between $15,001 and $50,000 of stock
in Park Hotels & Resorts, which saw
its stock price drop from nearly $24 to
under $5. The hotel industry is asking
President Donald
Trump for a bailout as Americans
increasingly avoid travel.
In an
audio recording obtained by NPR, the
North Carolina Republican was heard telling donors
at a luncheon on Feb. 27 that the coronavirus,
officially called COVID-19, would likely spread
through the population aggressively—and suggested it
could kill hundreds of thousands of people.
|
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
|
"It is much more aggressive in its transmission
than anything that we have seen in recent history,"
Burr said.
"It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic,"
he added, referring to the flu pandemic which killed
more than 600,000 Americans.
Listen:
Just two days earlier, Trump was
telling the press that the U.S. was "very close"
to finding a vaccine for COVID-19 while complaining
on social media that the Democrats were unfair to
his administration in their criticism of his
response to the outbreak.
The recording "raises questions about why Burr
felt the need to keep what he knew contained,"
wrote Peter Wade at Rolling Stone. "Was
the fear of backlash from Trump stronger than his
desire to save American lives?"
A day after Burr spoke at the luncheon, the U.S.
reported its first death from the coronavirus.
As of Thursday, three weeks after Burr's private
remarks, more than 10,000 people in the U.S. have
contracted the virus, and 172 have died.
The luncheon Burr spoke at was organized by the
Tar Heel Circle, a business organization in North
Carolina with membership fees ranging from $500 to
$10,000. The donors he was addressing, according to
NPR, contributed a total of $100,000 to his
2016 campaign.
In his remarks, the senator also warned the
donors that the outbreak—officially
designated a pandemic about two weeks after Burr
spoke—could force schools in North Carolina and
across the U.S. to close for weeks at a time and
advised them to reconsider business travel.
"You may have to look at your employees and judge
whether the trip they're making to Europe is
essential or whether it can be done on video
conference," said Burr. "Why risk it?"
The warning came 13 days before the State
Department issued travel restrictions for countries
hard-hit by the coronavirus.
As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed
out, Burr did not share his warning to donors with
the American people.
"To the general public," Reich tweeted, "he made
no such warnings and gave no such advice."
About a week after the luncheon, on March 5, Burr
struck a reassuring tone in a
public statement about the virus, telling
constituents, "We have a framework in place that has
put us in a better position than any other country
to respond to a public health threat, like the
coronavirus."
Since then, the U.S. has lagged
behind other countries in testing people for the
coronavirus, while healthcare workers have reported
dangerous shortages of ventilators and
protective equipment needed to treat people with the
coronavirus.
"If you paid up to $10,000 for membership and
have a history of donating to Richard Burr,"
wrote journalist David Dayen, "you would have
received significant insight about COVID-19 by Feb
27."
"Source"
Do you agree or disagree? Post
your comment here
| |
