- I'm a lifelong conservative.
Pro Second Amendment.
Pro Trump.
Pro military.
And pro wall.
- [Narrator] That's Kelly Loeffler.
A Republican senator from Georgia.
Recently, a vast amount of stocks belonging to Loeffler
were sold amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
So why are people accusing her of looking out for her wallet
instead of the American people?
I'm rap artist Busdriver and this is a story
about American senator Kelly Loeffler.
Kelly Lynn Loeffler was born
in Bloomington, Illinois in 1970.
Bloomington is best known as the home
of State Farm Insurance,
or seemingly every other commercial on television.
But it wouldn't take long for Loeffler
to dominate the airwaves herself.
She attended undergrad
at the University of Illinois in Champaign,
where she was a member of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority,
which often held fundraisers for diabetes.
She went on to graduate from Chicago's DePaul University
with an MBA in 1999.
Out of school, Loeffler worked at Toyota for four years,
where, according to LinkedIn,
she was a District Account Manager.
From there, she hopped to CitiBank
then to William Blair, an investment banking company,
and then eventually to Intercontinental Exchange,
or ICE, in 2002.
According to the company's website,
it "builds, operates and advances global markets
through information, technology and expertise."
AKA, it owns financial and commodities exchanges
including the Wall Street located New York Stock Exchange.
Oh, do tell.
She quickly climbed the company ladder
securing a seat as a top lieutenant
for the company's CEO, Jeff Sprecher.
In 2004, Loeffler married her boss, Jeff Sprecher.
How convenient.
Later, she took over as head of marketing.
In 2013, the company bought the New York Stock Exchange
for over $8 billion.
Wow.
Along the way, Loeffler apparently bought
a minority stake in the WNBA team The Atlanta Dream
before becoming a full-time co-owner in 2011.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution notes
why this is a particularly interesting venture
for Loeffler of all people:
This doesn't go unnoticed by Loeffler, though.
She told AJC,
In 2018, Loeffler left Intercontinental Exchange
for a CEO position at an ICE subsidiary company
called Bakkt, which according to Fortune Magazine,
She must've been earning a pretty penny, too.
She and her husband made history in Atlanta
for purchasing the most expensive real estate
ever in the city.
According to Atlanta Magazine, the $10.5 million mansion is:
But their shopping spree didn't end with modest homes.
Loeffler and her husband would donate $3.2 million
to political committees, 3% of which went to Democrats.
One of their biggest spending sprees
went to a SuperPac supporting Willard "Mitt" Romney.
The company coughed up $750,000
in support of the Senator from Utah.
But just giving exorbitant amounts of money to candidates
wouldn't be enough for Loeffler.
In 2019, she applied to succeed Senator Johnny Isakson,
who resigned from the post citing health reasons.
Although Loeffler wasn't Trump's first choice,
he wanted Doug Collins, she was tapped
by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp for the position,
where she's been serving the American people ever since.
It's unclear if they want to be served by her,
considering she's in an unelected position,
but nonetheless, she is Georgia's first
female senator in 98 years.
- I'm proud to announce that conservative businesswoman
and political outsider Kelly Loeffler
will be Georgia's next U.S. Senator.
- [Busdriver] CNBC notes,
And boy would she use it.
A novel Coronavirus ignited an outbreak of a deadly disease
called COVID-19 in China in December of 2019.
The disease spread quickly, with the first case in the U.S.
occurring the following month.
By March of 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak
was in its nascent stage,
just beginning to take hold in the U.S.
Then in early 2020, Loeffler and her colleagues
sat through some closed-door meetings.
And right after those meetings,
Loeffler sold a bunch of stocks.
Hmm, suspicious?
A whole bunch.
Directly before the market took a nosedive
she sold, in total, stocks valued up to $18.7 million.
She dumped her retail sales and bought shares in Dupont,
which produces medical supplies.
Instead of warning the American people
after getting such vital information,
she offloaded millions in stocks
and then publicly said this:
- The good news is the consumer is strong,
the economy is strong, jobs are growing.
Our president has done a fantastic job
making sure that we're in the best position
to manage through this situation.
- [Busdriver] However, Loeffler claims the sales
were completely out of her hands.
She claims the transactions were carried out
by her and her husband's financial advisor,
without their knowledge.
- You sold over a million dollars in stocks
in your own personal portfolio before the market went down.
Were you trading on inside information
about what was coming?
- Well, I'm really glad you asked, Ed,
because I do want to set the record straight.
I've seen some of those stories
and it's absolutely false and it could not be true,
so if you actually look at the personal transaction reports
that were filed, it notices at the bottom
that I'm only informed of my transactions
after they occur, several weeks.
- [Busdriver] Loeffler has an uphill battle
to her reelection in November of 2020.
She's never had to court voters
and, after questions were raised around her profiting
off of this deadly pandemic which, as of April 7th, 2020,
has killed at least 11,000 Americans,
it's unclear if she knows how.
But at least the money is on her side.
She's reportedly planning to spend $20 million
on her reelection campaign,
in addition to the nearly $250,000
she and her husband already donated
to a political committee backing her run.
Georgia voters will certainly be wrestling
with Loeffler's insider trading allegations
before they reach the ballot box.
She's gearing up for a fight for her seat
against Iraq veteran Doug Collins
who perhaps said it best in a recent tweet:
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