Richard Burr Should Resign
On January 7, 2020, Chinese officials announced that a cluster of people had contracted something known as the novel coronavirus. A few weeks later, the pandemic struck the United States, causing many in Washington to be extremely worried. This resulted in a meeting of the 535 members of the House and Senate to discuss coronavirus measures that could help the American people. After the meeting, many of these congresspeople and senators were looking into ways to protect their staff from the coronavirus or into provisions they could add into a potential bill. One man was more worried about his stocks than about the American people: Richard Burr, the senior senator from North Carolina.
Senator Burr is not only one of the most selfish lawmakers in America today, but also he has contempt for the law. To be clear, this isn't a partisan jab. I believe that many on the GOP side have done great things, but I think that any lawmaker more worried about his stock portfolio than about the health of America shouldn't have a job in the US Senate. He's acting more like a lobbyist than a government servant.
Senator Burr should resign because he commited insider trading and because he released information from a classified brief meant for him only. Both of these are felonies, and the latter can put our national security at risk.
Senator Burr had been a stockholder of many major corporations and held many shares, but he suddenly sold most of his shares, which was an indication to his fellow stockholders that an economic downturn was on its way. The law says that a person can only make financial decisions based on public information. The information wasn't public when Burr sold his stocks. On February 27, a few days after he read the classified brief, he talked to a lot of high-dollar donors about the coronavirus. Shortly thereafter, the senator made $600,000 to $1.7 million from his sale of stocks. He's stock dump occurred long before the economy was in trouble.
The point is that Senator Richard Burr's actions were illegal, and he needs to be held accountable so other people don't take advantage of their positions. If the investigations continue, Senator Burr's reputation and influence on Capitol Hill will continue to diminish. Burr announced months ago that he won't seek reelection, so what's the point going out as an outcast senator? He should mitigate the damage to his reputation and spend time with his family. He should resign immediately.
