BREAKING: NYT Analysis of Perdue’s Shady Stock Trades Shows Senator Repeatedly Traded In “Companies That Stood To Benefit” From His Committee Work

2,596 Trades In One Term: Perdue’s Stock Trades Have “Far Outpaced” His Colleagues’ And Include “Range Of Companies Within His Senate Committees’ Oversight”

Perdue “Has Been The Senate’s Most Prolific Stock Trader By Far” And His Transactions “Accounted For Nearly A Third Of All Senate Trades Reported In The Past Six Years”

A breaking New York Times investigation into Senator David Perdue’s stock trading found that the breadth of questionable transactions included numerous “companies that stood to benefit from policy and spending matters that came not just before the Senate as a whole, but before the committees and subcommittees on which he served.”

The New York Times’ examination follows a series of bombshell reports outlining Perdue’s “suspicious” stock trading that prompted a federal criminal investigation this year and exposed his direct personal involvement in trading decisions. The Times detailed Perdue’s “numerous well-timed trades,” focusing on transactions “involving industries that were within his direct oversight through his committee positions.” Perdue’s suspicious conduct invites even more questions about his conflicts of interests and the potential for insider trading that arises “when members of powerful congressional committees buy and sell shares of companies directly affected by the issues before them.”

During his six years in public office, Perdue “has been the Senate’s most prolific stock trader by far, sometimes reporting 20 or more transactions in a single day.” According to the Times’ analysis, Perdue’s stock transactions “accounted for nearly a third of all Senate trades reported in the past six years” and his 2,596 trades “roughly equal the combined trading volume of the next five most active traders in the Senate.”

“The drip, drip, drip of corruption continues for Senator David Perdue, who continues to be exposed as an unethical Washington politician,” said DSCC spokesperson Shea Necheles. “Over the last six years, Senator Perdue has been more focused on enriching himself in Washington than delivering for Georgians. It’s blatant corruption, and when Georgians have their final say at the ballot box, Senator Perdue will no longer be able to abuse his office for shady self-dealing and crooked behavior.”

New York Times: 2,596 Trades in One Term: Inside Senator Perdue’s Stock Portfolio
By Stephanie Saul, Kate Kelly and Michael LaForgia
December 2, 2020

Key Points:

• As a member of the Senate’s cybersecurity subcommittee, David Perdue has raised alarms that hackers from overseas pose a threat to U.S. computer networks. Citing a frightening report by a California-based company called FireEye, Mr. Perdue was among the senators who asked this spring that the National Guard prepare to protect against such data breaches.

• Not only was the issue important to Mr. Perdue. So was FireEye, a federal contractor that provides malware detection and threat-intelligence services. Beginning in 2016, the senator bought and sold FireEye stock 61 times, at one point owning as much as $250,000 worth of shares in the company.

• Last week, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department had investigated the senator for possible insider trading in his sale of more than $1 million worth of stock in a financial-analysis firm, Cardlytics…Other media outlets have revealed several trades in companies whose business dealings fall under the jurisdiction of Mr. Perdue’s committees.

• An examination of Mr. Perdue’s stock trading during his six years in office reveals that he has been the Senate’s most prolific stock trader by far, sometimes reporting 20 or more transactions in a single day.

• The Times analyzed data compiled by Senate Stock Watcher, a nonpartisan website that aggregates publicly available information on lawmakers’ trading, and found that Mr. Perdue’s transactions accounted for nearly a third of all Senate trades reported in the past six years. His 2,596 trades, mostly in stocks but also in bonds and funds, roughly equal the combined trading volume of the next five most active traders in the Senate.

• The data also shows the breadth of trades Mr. Perdue made in companies that stood to benefit from policy and spending matters that came not just before the Senate as a whole, but before the committees and subcommittees on which he served.

• Nearly half of Mr. Perdue’s FireEye trades, for example, occurred while he sat on the cybersecurity panel, a role that potentially could have provided him with nonpublic information about companies like FireEye. During that period, FireEye landed a subcontract worth more than $30 million with the Army Cyber Command, which had operations at Fort Gordon, in Mr. Perdue’s home state. In 2018, Mr. Perdue reported capital gains of up to $15,000 from FireEye trades.

• In a letter last week to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, requested an investigation of Mr. Perdue’s trades in BWX Technologies, a Virginia-based company that supplies nuclear components for Navy submarines. The trades were first reported by The Daily Beast.

• Though Mr. Perdue has traded many energy stocks while in office, buying and selling dozens of drilling, pipeline, power, and related equipment companies, the transactions that invite special scrutiny are those involving industries that were within his direct oversight through his committee positions.

Read the full investigation here.

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