Putting Money Before Lives.

Late January, multiple republican senators attended an intelligence briefing explaining what a possible pandemic like situation would look like in the United States if the virus Covid-19 was not taken seriously and the potential dangers that could occur if the virus was allowed to spread across the general population. Acting with this knowledge in mind, two senators, Richard Burr from North Carolina and Kelly Loeffler from Georgia had reach a pivotal moment in their career. They had two options to approach the information they had recently been given which was to remain silent and allow other to handle the situation or break away from the group and alert people of the United States to what can possibly happen if the situation if not taken seriously and the necessary precautions are put into place. Both of these senators decided to stay quiet, allowing for the ever growing problem on the horizon to grow even larger in size. Now, up to this point both senators had technically not done anything illegal until, they unloaded shares of a company knowing about the potential pandemic that was going to take place. In is well known in the United States that insider trading is illegal and can send you to jail due to the fact that you are using private knowledge to get ahead of the market and lessen the blow to your private wealth. It was later reported that both senators had denied that they had used the information given to them in the intelligence briefing to sway opinion into weather they sold their shares or not. According to David Leonhardt from the New York Times “ Here’s what the two senators did instead: They sold large amounts of their personal stock holdings, cashing in before the market sharply declined, as the severity of the virus became apparent to everyone.”, obviously going behind the public’s best interest the senators attempted to save face by denying they had used the knowledge gained from their intelligence briefing to influence their decision to sell off their shares. I personally believe no amount of good PR can save these senators from what they have done to themselves in their own act of betrayal especially to the safety and well being of  their own constituents who will have to decide if they want to reelect them in the future.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/burr-loeffler-stocks-coronavirus.html