Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he did not have enough information to call for Sen. Richard Burr’s resignation after the FBI issued a warrant in connection to an insider trading investigation.
The FBI served a warrant for the North Carolina Republican’s cellphone Wednesday as part of an investigation into his sale of more than $1 million in stocks after he received an intelligence briefing on the coronavirus in February. During a Thursday interview on Squawk on the Street, Schumer said it would be “premature” for him to call for Burr to resign from Congress or step down as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“I haven’t seen the reports. I just read the headlines. So it’s premature for me to comment on that,” the New York Democrat said when pressed on the possibility, adding, “I cannot comment on Burr until I know the details.”
Schumer said he does not own stocks himself and has advised his colleagues to follow his lead to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest, saying, “It’s a lot easier when they don’t own stocks.”
Burr dumped as much as $1.72 million in stocks shortly after being briefed on the coronavirus. His brother-in-law Gerald Fauth, a Trump appointee, also made several stock sales that same day, though attorneys representing Burr told the Washington Examiner that the two did not speak about any decisions to sell. Burr has fully denied any wrongdoing and maintained that every financial decision was guided exclusively by information available to the public.
Several other senators have been criticized for selling stocks around the same time as Burr, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican.
