As a frightening new virus began spreading around the world in early 2020, a few lawmakers made some very well-timed stock trades.
Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr of North Carolina sold shares in hotel companies that would lose value as travel dropped amid the rising pandemic. Then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican, and her husband bought stock in a company that makes teleworking software, which gained value as millions of people began working from home weeks later. The wife of GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky bought stock in Gilead Sciences, which went on to develop an antiviral drug used to treat COVID-19.
All of this was before the coronavirus upended normal life in the U.S., sickened millions of people and caused wild changes in stock prices. But it was after senators were privately briefed in late January on the emerging threat the new virus posed to the nation.
