FBI carries out search warrant against Republican Senator Richard Burr
These days it can be difficult to figure out which parts of the DOJ and FBI are still functioning, even as Donald Trump and Bill Barr work to corrupt and dismantle both agencies. But it’s fairly clear that the FBI is still fully intact when it comes to the insider trading scandal involving Republican Senator Richard Burr.
Richard Burr and a few other Republican Senators dumped their personal stock portfolios after receiving a classified briefing which revealed that the coronavirus crisis was going to be ugly enough to tank the economy. Burr compounded his offense by privately admitting to a group of donors that the economic crash would be ugly, even while publicly insisting that things would be fine.
Now the FBI has carried out a search warrant against Richard Burr, seizing his cellphone in the process, according to the Los Angeles Times. This is a big deal. The Feds must already have some incriminating evidence against Burr in order to have been able to obtain the warrant for his phone to begin with, and now they have his phone records as well. Although there’s no way to guess the timetable, this is clearly building toward a potential indictment and arrest.
Here’s thing though: why only Richard Burr? There’s no reporting that the FBI is pursuing any action against other Republican Senators who took similar insider trading steps, such as Kelly Loeffler. It’s possible that there is a case against Loeffler and it merely hasn’t spilled out into the public.
But it’s also theoretically possible that Trump and Barr are solely targeting Richard Burr, because he’s always hesitated to play ball with the Trump regime in his role as Senate Intel Committee Chairman, and taking Burr down could allow one of Trump’s lackeys to take over the committee. It’s worth watching to try to figure out where this is really heading.
