Rand Paul's wife purchase stock
from Gilead Sciences and
Rand Paul who's supposed to report
that didn't do so.
In fact, he didn't report it until
16 months after the deadline to do
so, which does certainly raise some
red flags.
But the timing of the Gilead share
purchases certainly also raises
a red flag.
And let me give you those details.
So, Rand Paul revealed that his
wife bought stock in
Gilead Sciences, which makes
the antiviral drug used to treat
COVID-19 on February 26, 2020.
Before the threat from
the Coronavirus was fully
understood by the public and before
it was classified as a pandemic by
the World Health Organization.
Now, the timing is important,
especially because you had members
of Congress,
certainly various committees
in the Senate who were briefed in
non-public meetings on Coronavirus.
So, they had information about
the severity of the pandemic before
the general public did.
The purchase was of between $1,000
and $15,000 in stock
in Gilead which makes the antiviral
drug known as remdesivir.
The company's stock was worth
$74.70 per share on the day of
the purchase, and
rose above $80 in March.
It has since fluctuated and
was worth $69.84 on the day of
Paul's disclosure more than a year
later.
So again,
it took him 16 months to report
this, he missed the deadline.
I think that's a huge problem.
But what I would argue is a far
larger problem, is that we have
members of Congress and the spouses
of members of Congress who are able
to invest in individual stocks.
That in and
of itself is a huge problem.
Even if this gets investigated and
there's no evidence of
insider trading taking place.
The fact that you have
Congressional lawmakers and
their families invested in
individual stocks certainly serves
as a conflict of interest.
And so, was there insider trading
taking place?
We don't know yet but
we do have a few more details.
Paul is a member of the Senate
health committee which in January,
In January, hosted Trump
administration officials for
a briefing on the Coronavirus.
So, this briefing happens in
January.
And then his wife,
Rand Paul's wife,
decides to buy shares of remdesivir
which was later used as a treatment
for Coronavirus in February.
So, I want to get your thoughts,
Charles.
Because this is an issue that's
been pretty infuriating.
I mean, when you really look at how
widespread this problem is
in Congress and
how much it impacts some of
the policy decisions they make.
It shows you that this conflict of
interest really does work against
the best interests of
the American people.
And the very individuals who voted
these Congressional lawmakers
into office in the first place.
>> So sure, there is a sentiment
among many people that the rich get
richer and the poor get poorer.
And so, examples of stories like
these are just fuel for
the fire that suggests that there
is going to be a class of people
who will continue to have and
a class of people who will continue
to have not.
And when I talk about haves and
have nots,
I'm talking about information,
as much as I'm talking about money.
And you went as far as to say that
members of Congress and
their families, or
their immediate family, should not
be allowed to trade publicly.
And while I also sort of had that
in my head in terms of something
that I was mulling over.
I wasn't prepared to go that far.
I was going to say that maybe there
should be tighter restrictions.
But the reality is when I think
about it, and I think it through,
there's been story, after story,
after story, where we have seen
that with the restrictions
that are currently in place.
And the attempts that people have
made, the Ethics Committee in both
houses of Congress in terms of
trying to create
transparency around reporting and
things of that nature.
We still have continued violations.
Right now,
Senator Richard Burr is still under
investigation from the FEC.
Around potential violations with
respect to insider trading.
And he is one of the remaining
senators.
Some of the other ones,
Feinstein and others,
Loeffler and others, were cleared
during the initial probe.
That took place in the wake
of a number of stocks being dumped
immediately before the announcement
of Coronavirus and the pandemic.
I say all that to say,
that what we've seen over and
over again, time and
time again is that unfortunately,
people in positions of power.
At least not in
the United States Congress, cannot
be trusted to make good decisions
when it comes to trading and
having access to information.
And obviously in many cases,
overwhelmingly, having the means to
take advantage of that
information in the market.
And so, this is an example of
something that unfortunately
supports your position,
in my opinion.
Because one would like to think
that if you put out stricter
regulations for people in power,
that that will be enough.
But what we are seeing is
that unfortunately,
that is not the case.
And so, you may be right in as much
as perhaps the solution is
just an altogether prohibition for
members of Congress and their
immediate families and our spouses.
In order to curtail this because I
don't see it changing anytime soon.
And Rand Paul at
the end of the day,
not only should he know better, but
quite frankly, he did know better.
>> Yeah, of course he did
know better.
The fact that he waited this long
to disclose that his wife purchased
this particular stock, I think is,
again, it's a huge red flag.
But this goes beyond Rand Paul and
his wife.
And I also want to just clarify.
When I say lawmakers and
their families, I'm not talking
about extended families.
I'm certainly talking about their
immediate family, their spouses,
because they live in the same
household.
And so, if their wives or
their husbands are buying shares of
a company, it still has the same
impact as it would if it were
the particular public servant doing
it him or herself.
And that's the thing,
I would like our public servants to
live up to that title.
Being a public servant means that
you have to sacrifice things.
Including investing in individual
stocks for
companies that you are going to
make legislative decisions about.
And I love that you brought
up Senator Burr because that was
really the story that forced me to
kind of explore how widespread
this problem is.
And I want to share this video with
you all because it gives you
a sense of how widespread it is and
how much of a problem it becomes in
terms of governing.
>> In March 2020,
news spread that four US Senators,
including Burr,
were being investigated for
insider trading.
>> Ahead of the drastic
escalations in this pandemic
while still reassuring citizens
that the US was prepared.
>> Senator Burr vehemently denies
the allegations against him, but
here's what we know.
On January 24th, the Senate's
health committee held a briefing
with CDC Director Robert Redfield,
and White House pandemic advisor
Dr. Anthony Fauci,
according to The Washington Post.
About two weeks later, Burr and
Tennessee Senator, Lamar Alexander,
wrote a Fox News editorial that
the US was better prepared than
ever to deal with a pandemic like
the Coronavirus.
Less than a week later,
the Dow set an all time record,
hitting just over 29,551 points.
On February 13th,
Burr sold between $630,000 and
$1.7 million worth of investments.
He did it in 33 separate
transactions and
he didn't buy a single share.
Perhaps worse, Burr may have
discussed the stock sales with his
brother-in-law and others according
to reporting by ProPublica, in
a secret recording obtained by NPR.
>> There's one thing that I can
tell you about this.
>> It is much more aggressive in
its transmission than anything that
we have seen in recent history.
It's probably more akin to the 1918
pandemic.
>> So, Burr implicated his own
brother by having that
conversation.
He, it appears,
acted on insider information while
downplaying the Coronavirus
pandemic to the general public.
Kelly Loeffler did the same thing.
Thankfully, she was elected out of
office in the senate
runoff races in Georgia.
And when it comes to holding these
lawmakers to account or
ensuring that they're not engaging
in insider trading, how does that
investigation go down?
How do they determine whether or
not there's any wrongdoing?
Well, this next video will give you
a little more information on that.
>> Insider trading isn't just done
by wealthy financier's or
celebrities.
Politicians have unique insight
into what most outsiders don't.
>> The size and
scope of what Congress is involved
in has broadened dramatically.
I mean, whether it's health care,
whether it's defense,
whether it's financial markets.
And they have market moving
information and they're going to
act on that information.
I mean, information is king.
>> A groundbreaking 2004 study by
a group of professors and
researchers examined the records of
US Senators between 1993 and 1998.
The study found that a portfolio
tracking the stocks that
the US Senators bought during
the same time period,
outperformed the market by 85 basis
points each month.
And a portfolio that track
the stocks that the Senators sold
during the period, lagged behind
the market by 12 basis points.
The study concluded that
the Senators knew
appropriate times to both buy and
sell their common stocks.
>> The Stock Act is enforced by
the Department of Justice and the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
And where do they get their
funding?
They get their funding
from Congress,
which is the very body that they
are supposed to be regulating.
So the Stock Act is good, but
I think we need to do a whole lot
better.
>> I mean, Charles, I mean,
when you think about how Congress
makes the decisions regarding
appropriations for the very bodies
that do these investigations into
insider trading.
And when you also consider that
they do these Senate Ethics
Committee investigations.
Meaning that their colleagues
conduct investigations into what
they've been doing.
And it's very likely that their own
colleagues are engaging in
the same behavior.
The investigators are likely
engaging in the same behavior.
I mean, it's all a farce.
It's all insanely ridiculous that
the investigations go down the way
they do.
And so, after the Senate Ethics
Committee looked into Loeffler and
Feinstein, they argued that no, no,
no, we can't.
There's no evidence of insider
trading, not at all, nothing.
Come on.
>> No, you're absolutely right.
And I think that at the end of
the day Congress has a decision
to make, with regard to public
transparency and civic engagement.
And this is a larger, broader,
more ideological conversation, but
it's still one that's relevant.
And it's relevant because if we
think about what we saw
on January 6th.
If we think about what we have seen
in the wake of last year's
election.
In terms of their people still who
do not want to accept the results
because they believe that our
democracy was hijacked, right.
There is this overarching sense of
misinformation and
lack of transparency.
And when you connect the dots
across these things,
what you will find is,
you cannot have it both ways.
You cannot put forth a system where
the game appears to be rigged
against folks.
And then, lambaste the people
who don't trust the system and
think that the game is rigged.
That's what they're seeing and
that's what you're showing them.
So, if you want people to
participate in earnest and you
want people to trust the system and
have faith in it and believe that
it operates with integrity.
Then you have to avoid situations
like these.
Where it appears as though you're
trying to have your cake and
eat it too.
And I think that's part of
the problem that we don't
necessarily make connections to.
We need to understand that these
have broader implications beyond
just Rand Paul or Richard Burr or
anyone else on
the individual level.
But that it really does damage
people's level of faith and
integrity in the system, that you
are asking people and quite frankly
requiring them to participate in as
a cornerstone in how we live and
operate as Americans.
>> I think that's such
a great point.
I mean, we're seeing
the consequences of the lack
of trust in our institutions.
When we look at,
groups of conspiracy theorists and
all of that.
And we wonder like what why won't
they believe the information?
Why won't they believe
the evidence?
Well, they've lost trust
in institutions,
including our government, Congress.
And this behavior certainly
doesn't help to mitigate that or
alleviate that.
Well, let's move on to our
next stories.
>> Before- >> Go ahead.
>> No, I was just going to add
a moment of levity to this before
we move on.
Imagine getting information and
then betting on the wrong horse.
>> I know. >> We're doing it. >> I
know.
>> If you think about remdesivir
and Rand Paul's wife,
she actually is losing money now.
Which actually sucks,
quite frankly.
But I think that's the sort of
silver lining to the story.
Imagine you got the inside
track and
you bet on the wrong horse to win.
And that to me,
just kind of makes me laugh,
but [CROSSTALK].
>> I know, it is pretty amazing.
I love that they're also using that
as a defense, by the way.
It's like no, no,
we didn't do anything wrong,
we're losing money from this.
>> So it's okay.
>> Yeah, obviously it's not okay.
But we'll see what happens.
I mean, I don't have a lot of
faith, considering the outcome of
the investigation into Loeffler and
Feinstein.
I know Burr is still being
investigated because his case was
even more egregious than others.
But we'll see how it plays out.
I just think the best way
to prevent any type of speculation
of wrongdoing is to prevent these
public servants and
their spouses from
investing in individual stocks.
It's that simple.