The Justice Department’s highest-profile coronavirus prosecutions are being handled by an office poised for leadership changes, reports Politico. Investigations of lawmakers for potentially illegal insider trading based on government briefings on the pandemic are being run by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the Public Integrity Section at the main Justice Department. The central location of the probes points to close coordination of investigations that could have immense stakes. And it may present a new test for one office that’s seen intense turmoil and a second that’s faced a series of high-profile defeats.
Several U.S. Attorney’s offices — including the Southern District of New York — wanted to handle insider trading investigations of lawmakers, but all the probes have been centralized in D.C. Last week, the FBI served a search warrant on Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and seized his phone. The next day, he stepped aside from his post as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Burr’s attorney said he was “actively cooperating with federal investigators” and denied any wrongdoing. Burr sold at least $628,000 in stock on Feb. 13 as coronavirus swept through China, while he was receiving regular closed-door briefings about the pandemic. Burr has said he made the sales based on public information. Prosecuting coronavirus-related insider trading could present a high-stakes challenge for the Justice Department. It would be the first major test of 2012 legislation called the STOCK Act, which bars lawmakers from making financial transactions based on secret information they glean through their government work. The law is largely untested.