Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, has turned over documents to the FBI about her husband’s stock sales that she says will show she had no input in his transactions, a spokesman said on Thursday.
“Senator Feinstein was asked some basic questions by law enforcement about her husband’s stock transactions, as I think all offices in the initial story were,” a spokesman for Feinstein said in a statement to media outlets on Thursday.
“She was happy to voluntarily answer those questions to set the record straight and provided additional documents to show she had no involvement in her husband’s transaction. There have been no follow up actions on this issue.”
While the spokesman did not specify the law enforcement agency that contacted Feinstein, The New York Times first reported that the FBI had questioned the senator over the matter.
Feinstein had said in a statement in March: “Under Senate rules I report my husband’s financial transactions. I have no input into his decisions. My husband in January and February sold shares of a cancer therapy company. This company is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus and the sale was unrelated to the situation.”
Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, is an investment banker who was reported to have sold between $500,001 to $1 million in stock from the California biotech company, Allogene Therapeutics, that develops cancer treatments in January, ahead of the market crash triggered by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a novel coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan, China.
The sale was reported by Feinstein in her routine Senate financial disclosure forms. Feinstein’s office did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) speaks to members of the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on May 7, 2020. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Epoch Times previously reported that stocks held by at least five senate lawmakers were sold in January and February after they receiving sensitive closed-door updates from intelligence officials on the then-emerging threat from the CCP virus, which at that time, hadn’t infected many people in the United States.
Feinstein was among them. Between $1.5 million and $6 million stocks with the Allogene Therapeutics cancer therapy company in her name were sold between Jan. 31 and Feb. 18, according to the disclosure forms.
In response to the media reports, Feinstein said that since assuming office, she has always held her assets in a blind trust over which she has no control.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act prohibits lawmakers and their aides from using “non-public information” obtained through their official duties to make a private profit, including insider trading.
The FBI hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
Overall, Burr sold between $628,000 and $1.7 million of his stocks on Feb. 13. The senator denies any wrongdoing, saying that his investment decision were made based on publicly available information.
