North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr has stepped down as the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee amid an insider trading investigation.
“Senator Burr contacted me this morning to inform me of his decision to step aside as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the pendency of the investigation,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Thursday. “We agreed that this decision would be in the best interests of the committee and will be effective at the end of the day tomorrow.”
The Justice Department is investigating whether Burr, 64, improperly used information he learned through daily briefings in his role leading the committee to inform his trading decisions earlier this year. The North Carolina senator offloaded up to $1.7 million in stocks right before the coronavirus pandemic led to a stock market plummet.
Burr made the call to McConnell a day after the Los Angeles Times reported the FBI seized a cellphone from him when law enforcement officials served a search warrant to Burr at his residence in the Washington area.
The Republican senator has maintained that he did nothing wrong and asked for the Senate Ethics Committee to conduct a full investigation into the allegations in March. Burr said in a statement after the controversy began that he “relied solely on public news reports” in his decision to sell a large percentage of his portfolio in 33 separate transactions.
“Sen. Burr filed a financial disclosure form for personal transactions made several weeks before the U.S. and financial markets showed signs of volatility due to the growing coronavirus outbreak,” a spokesperson for the lawmaker told the Washington Examiner at the time.
With Burr temporarily stepping aside as chairman, it is not immediately clear who will take over to helm the intelligence panel.
Sen. James Risch of Idaho is the next in line, but South Dakota Sen. John Thune told CNN that Risch is likely to stay on as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Others who could get the nod are Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida or Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Burr has “done the right thing” in temporarily stepping aside as chairman.
Burr was asked by CNN if he has given any thought to resigning from the Senate. “No,” he responded. He also said, “Nope,” when asked if he exercised poor judgment with his stock trades.
Another senator who faced insider trading allegations, Dianne Feinstein, confirmed that she has spoken to the FBI and gave them documents about her husband’s stock trades.
The California Democrat told the Washington Examiner earlier this year: “During my Senate career, I’ve held all assets in a blind trust of which I have no control” and “reports that I sold any assets are incorrect, as are reports that I was at a Jan. 24 briefing on coronavirus, which I was unable to attend.”
“Under Senate rules, I report my husband’s financial transactions,” Feinstein added. “I have no input into his decisions. My husband in January and February sold shares of a cancer therapy company. This company is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus, and the sale was unrelated to the situation.”
