A Trump appointee who happens to be the brother-in-law of Sen. Richard Burr sold off hundreds of thousands of stocks on the same day that Burr made his controversial sales.
Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has been called into question over approximately $1.7 million in stock sales that took place just after he heard a briefing from Dr. Anthony Fauci about the coronavirus. A report from ProPublica found that his brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth, made stock sales on the same day.
Fauth, who was appointed by President Trump to the National Mediation Board, made stock sales valued between $97,000 and $280,000 on the same day that Burr made his sales following his Senate coronavirus briefing. An analysis of his sales conducted by the investigative firm QRI found that Fauth likely avoided between $37,000 and $118,000 in losses.
On Feb. 13, Fauth made sales in stock held by the home goods retailer Williams-Sonoma, the snack company Mondelez International, the tobacco producer Altria, and several oil companies, including BP, Chevron, and Royal Dutch Shell.
Burr has maintained that there was no wrongdoing in his sales and has requested an investigation into the transactions by the Senate Ethics Committee. In a statement following the reports on Fauth, Alice Fisher of Latham & Watkins, a firm advising Burr, told the Washington Examiner, “Senator Burr participated in the stock market based on public information, and he did not coordinate his decision to trade on February 13 with Mr. Fauth.”
Several other senators were ensnared in the scandal for making similar sales, including Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. Both Loeffler and Feinstein have similarly denied wrongdoing in the sales.
As a member of the National Mediation Board, Fauth oversees labor disputes in the airline and railroad industries in the United States. He was a lobbyist in the transportation sector before being appointed by Trump in 2017. Fauth did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment.
