How Senators May Have Avoided Insider Trading Charges
May 26, 2020 | The Insider: White Collar Defense and Securities Enforcement
Yesterday, reporters revealed the Department of Justice had discontinued the investigations into coronavirus-related trading by Senators Kelly Loeffler, James Inhofe, and Dianne Feinstein (whose holdings are in a blind trust). The three Senators each had sold—and in Senator Loeffler’s case, bought—large amounts of stock the same day or soon after a confidential senatorial briefing on January 24 by the CDC’s Director and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Prosecutors’ apparent direct communication of this result to the senators is somewhat unusual; ordinary defendants rarely get the security of knowing so promptly that the government has declined a case. The news also comes on the heels of reports that Department of Justice recently took control over these investigations from the Southern District of New York, raising the specter that this quick decision indicates further politicization of DOJ’s mission, or at minimum indicates continued erosion of Main Justice’s traditional deference to local U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. [...]
