- [Interviewer] What is your position on socks?
- Oh, listen I'm not opposed.
We manufacture a lot of socks in North Carolina;
I just choose not to wear them.
- [Narrator] That's Richard Burr.
He's a senator from North Carolina
and the head of the Senate Intel Committee.
He recently profited off the Coronavirus outbreak
through alleged insider trading.
He reportedly sold up to 1.7 million in stock
after getting private in-depth briefings on the virus.
Instead of warning the American public
about the dangers of the virus,
he sold his stock and wrote an op-ed
about everything being totally fine.
Sounds chill.
So what's his deal?
I'm Jordan Mendoza,
and this is a story about American Senator Richard Burr.
- You can find the videos you're looking for right here.
- [Jason] Richard Mauze Burr was born
in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1955,
a city famous for its Confederate monuments
of racist dudes on horses.
Burr's father was a pastor
who served as his son's childhood inspiration.
He's also an indirect relative
of the third vice president, Aaron Burr,
a guy who's famous
for shooting Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
(gun cocking and firing)
The family moved to North Carolina,
where Burr attended high school
and then college at Wake Forest.
Burr's career started as a sales manager
at Carswell Distributing Company,
a wholesale commercial products company
specializing in lawn equipment.
After moving lawnmowers,
Burr decided to jump into the world of politics,
where he'd be as green as one of his gorgeous lawns.
In 1992, Burr ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. House seat
in the Winston-Salem Fifth District,
but just two years later, in 1994, he won the seat
and was re-elected to the post four times.
In the House, he sponsored the FDA Modernization Act,
which, among other things,
expedited the approval process of a drug,
getting life-saving drugs to the market quicker.
But in another case,
Burr turned his back on the American people.
When a whistleblower from the House Intelligence Committee
found out the NSA had launched
an illegal surveillance program,
spying on millions of Americans in the aftermath of 9/11,
Burr stayed out of it.
He didn't notify America,
nor did he help the whistleblower
navigate the illegal program through the right channels.
The Intercept notes,
"Instead of protecting the constituents he served,
Burr chose to protect his political career.
He displayed cowardice
when a courageous whistleblower sought his help.
He was rewarded when he was elected to the Senate in 2004
with the full backing of the Republican Party."
- Today is a special day for me,
and I wanna thank everyone who believed in my candidacy.
- [Jordan] In 2004, Burr's campaign
was supported by a Karl Rove backed group.
Karl Rove, of course,
was credited with putting George W. Bush in the White House.
Rove's track record only improved
after Burr won John Edward's vacant seat.
Burr was re-elected two times,
where he's been ever since.
While he did side with Democrats
in voting to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell,
he's largely been a solid Republican lapdog.
In the Senate, among other issues,
he supported the Supreme Court's decision
on Citizens United,
which allows corporations
to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections.
He seemingly supports buying elections for good reason.
Burr has an A plus rating from the NRA,
who has spent about seven million dollars on his campaigns.
Consequently, he is, as of 2017,
the second most-funded senator
from the gun-lobby organization,
only behind a now-deceased John McCain.
In addition to voting with his wallet,
I mean his heart,
he voted to confirm Betsy DeVos
as Secretary of Education
after DeVos and seven of her family members
contributed $43,200 to his prior campaign.
- The only thing she's aspired to
is moving the power out of this town,
and moving it to states and localities,
where local school systems can make decisions
about their future.
- [Jason] But the cash flow didn't stop
at Burr and his campaigns.
As McClatchy DC reported in 2016,
"Richard Burr's political committees
have paid nearly $200,000 over the last 16 years
to his in-laws
and a firm employing his son
for office rent and administrative services."
While he's seemingly living large,
the senator with a Ron Swanson vibe about him
drives an old, beat up Volkswagen Thing.
It dons several bumper stickers like,
"If you think healthcare is expensive now,
wait until it's free,"
which definitely makes sense,
and another that reads,
"Honk if I'm paying your mortgage."
Unclear if that last one is about his family members.
The Thing is basically a before photo
from MTV's "Pimp My Ride,"
with no plans of becoming an after photo.
♪ You've got to pimp my ride ♪
While his car may scream, "Man of the people,"
his most recent move in the Senate says the opposite.
As a novel coronavirus that causes a disease
called COVID-19 swept the nation,
Burr told the American public
there was nothing to worry about.
After doing so, he sold up to $1.7 million of his stocks.
Propublica broke the news.
"Soon after he offered public assurances
that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus,
the powerful chairman
of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr,
sold off a significant percentage of his stocks,
unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million
of his holdings on February 13
in 33 separate transactions."
It's worth noting that three of the assets Burr sold
were hotel companies,
and with, as of April 1,
the U.S. having over 185,000 confirmed cases
and over 4,000 people having died
as a result of COVID-19,
these hotel stocks have plummeted in value significantly.
As the head of the Intel Committee,
Burr is accustomed to getting highly classified briefings
on threats to the American public.
He was reportedly given several
about the threat COVID-19 imposed,
and instead of warning America,
he told them everything was fine
and then dumped nearly all of his stocks
because everything wasn't fine.
- The numbers are so large.
It's difficult for the average person
to imagine how much money we're really talking about.
- [Jordan] A month after selling them,
the market tumbled 30% below its peak.
When NPR asked his office for a comment,
Burr's spokesperson replied, "LOL,"
which is exactly how a Batman villain would handle this.
In the immediate aftermath,
both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tucker Carlson
called for Burr to resign,
meaning Carlson and AOC have one full thing in common.
- Literally the day of, or within days, of
getting that briefing,
they dumped millions of dollars in stock,
that they knew was going to crash, ahead of time
while telling the public,
"We got this; it's not a big deal.
Everything is fine."
- [Jason] In a tweet, AOC added,
"He needs to resign."
On air, Carlson said this.
- Now, maybe there's an honest explanation for what he did.
If there is, he should share it
with the rest of us immediately.
Otherwise, he must resign from the Senate
and face prosecution for insider trading."
- [Jason] But Burr wasn't the only Senator
to dump his stocks, though.
Democrat Diane Feinstein
and Republicans Kelly Loeffler and Jim Inhofe
all dumped stocks around the same time Burr did.
Although, they claim the transactions were carried out
by their financial advisors
without their knowledge.
Burr has since denied any wrongdoing,
claiming he dumped his stocks based on TV reports,
not the insider information he was given.
He's called for a full and expedited investigation
of these sales.
After Burr was re-elected
to the Senate in 2016,
he claimed he wouldn't run again in 2022,
and that these would be his last years serving himself --
I mean the American people.
It's unclear if he'll get a chance
to ride the remaining years out,
chiefly because the FBI has reached out directly
to Senator Burr
about the sales of his stock.
(jazzy music)
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