Loeffler liquidates stocks amid uproar over trades after Senate coronavirus briefing

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) announced Wednesday that she is liquidating her stock portfolio and converting the holdings to general exchange-traded and mutual funds amid persistent allegations that she traded stocks based on privileged information about the coronavirus outbreak. 

“Although Senate ethics rules don’t require it, my husband and I are liquidating our holdings in managed accounts and moving into exchange-traded funds and mutual funds. I will report these exiting transactions in the periodic transaction report I file later this month,” she wrote.

Loeffler, one of the richest members of Congress, made her announcement in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday afternoon, a day after her Republican opponent, Rep. Doug Collins (Ga.), released an internal poll showing him with a large lead. 

The Battleground Connect survey showed Collins with 36 percent support, followed by Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock with 16 percent and Loeffler with 13 percent.

Collins, Loeffler and Warnock will all face each other in a special election in November. Unless someone wins a majority of the vote, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will advance to a runoff election in January.

Collins has attacked Loeffler relentlessly in recent weeks over stock transactions she and her husband made after senators, including Loeffler, received a briefing from health officials on Capitol Hill Jan. 24. 

Loeffler and her spouse, Jeffrey Sprecher, the CEO of Intercontinental Exchange and the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, made more than 20 stock transactions totaling millions of dollars after the briefing.

“People are losing their jobs, their businesses, their retirements, and even their lives and Kelly Loeffler is profiting off their pain?” Collins tweeted shortly after the transactions were revealed. “I’m just sickened thinking about it.” 

Loeffler has always maintained that the stock purchases and sales were made by third-party investment managers and she was only informed after the fact.

“As longtime executives at a Fortune 500 financial-services firm, my husband and I put this arrangement in place to insulate ourselves and our colleagues from these sorts of unfounded accusations,” Loeffler, 49, a former investment relations professional who is worth an estimated $500 million, wrote in Wednesday’s op-ed.

She accused the media of being “fixated on a fantasy of improper congressional trading” based on the Jan. 24 briefing. 

She said the briefing by federal health officials did not provide any “material or nonpublic information” that could serve as the basis for insider trading charges.

“All we did was meet public-health leaders and ask them questions about the emerging virus,” she said.

Loeffler admitted no wrongdoing and asserted she is liquidating her stocks to put to rest what she is calling a “distraction.”

“I’m not doing this because I have to. I’ve done everything the right way and in compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, Senate ethics rules and U.S. law,” she wrote Wednesday.

“I’m doing it because the issue isn’t worth the distraction. My family’s investment accounts are being used as weapons for an assault on my character at a time when we should all be focused on making our country safe and strong,” she added.  

Loeffler was appointed to her Senate seat by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in December following the retirement of former Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who resigned before the end of his term because of health reasons.