Democrats “Hammer” Perdue & Loeffler On “Controversial” Stock Trades, Pattern Of “Naked Corruption”

POLITICO: “A Raft Of New Stories From Various Outlets Has Created A Cascading Effect Of Information” About Perdue And Loeffler’s Shady Stock Trading

The Daily Beast: Democrats Are Seizing On “A Series Of Reports That Indicated Perdue Had Used His Office To Increase His Already Substantial Wealth”

The Week: “If You Want A Couple Senators To Govern Solely On Behalf Of Their Massive Asset Portfolio While Leaving Everyone Else Twisting In The Wind, Vote Perdue And Loeffler”

A series of new reports today from POLITICO, The Daily Beast, and The Week highlight how a pattern of “naked corruption” has come to define the case against former corporate CEO Senator David Perdue and unelected “political mega-donor” Senator Kelly Loeffler in the highly competitive Georgia runoffs. The two ultra-rich corporate insiders are facing increasing criticism and scrutiny as “a raft of new stories from various outlets has created a cascading effect of information” about their “controversial” stock trading and how they have abused their offices to increase their “already substantial wealth” during this pandemic.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

POLITICO: Democrats spend millions to hammer Perdue, Loeffler on controversial stock trades

By Marianne Levine and James Arkin

• Democrats are putting a lot of stock into Sen. David Perdue’s controversial financial transactions in their fight to win the Senate majority.

• As the Georgia Republican continues to face an onslaught of news stories about the timing of his stocks trades amid a high profile runoff, super PACs run by allies of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are flooding the airwaves in the state.

• Perdue and Loeffler both faced negative ads about their stock portfolios consistently throughout the general election. But the issue has taken on heightened intensity in recent weeks because the two senators are the only Republicans still on the ballot.

• Jon Ossoff, who is running against Perdue, continues to use the stock issue against the senator and even called his opponent a “crook” during a debate. In a press conference Monday, Ossoff characterized Perdue’s actions as “repeated and flagrant.”

• “The standard for conduct for a U.S. Senator needs to be higher than that he wasn’t criminally prosecuted,” Ossoff said. “This conduct is obviously deeply unethical and his lies all year that he doesn’t personally direct his stock trades have been exposed as lies.”

• “The people of Georgia deserve to know that when we send someone to the Senate, that person is not focused on their business, they’re focused on the people’s business,” Warnock said.

• Democrats, however, are publicly questioning Perdue’s claims of exoneration and calling for documentation.

• Democrats’ ads have played up different aspects of the trading, and a raft of new stories from various outlets has created a cascading effect of information about the stocks.

The Daily Beast: Ossoff Goes for Perdue’s Jugular in GA Senate Race

By Sam Brodey

• For months, Jon Ossoff has focused his campaign for U.S. Senate in Georgia on the Democratic Party’s standard slate of 2020 issues, like health care, climate change, and the COVID-19 response. But as the runoff campaign to decide control of the Senate heats up, Ossoff is increasingly leaning on another issue: his Republican opponent’s stock portfolio.

• Which is why on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Ossoff stood outside of a union hall in downtown Atlanta, berating his opponent in the wake of a series of reports that indicated Perdue had used his office to increase his already substantial wealth.

• Ossoff’s campaign convened the cameras to discuss the most recent report, in the New York Times, which confirmed that Perdue had been under investigation from the Department of Justice for stock transactions timed around private briefings for senators around the spread of the coronavirus in January.

• The Times also found that Perdue’s insistent explanation for past instances of his questionably timed stock trades—that he has no control over his portfolio—was wrong: in January, the senator called his stockbroker and directed him to sell off $1 million in shares of a financial company whose share value later plummeted.

• “What’s come out in the last week is that Sen. Perdue has been lying to the public, and to you, members of the press, for the last year about his financial misconduct,” said Ossoff, adding that Perdue needs to “come out of hiding” and answer questions about this activity and his explanations for it.

• While Perdue has been “looking after himself,” as Ossoff put it, he’s been part of a Senate GOP majority that has passed COVID relief measures that, to Democrats, fall far short of what is needed to address the widespread economic pain in the country. Asked by a reporter about the stakes of his race on Monday, Ossoff said, “this is about, for example, the direct economic relief that Sen. Perdue has been obstructing while looking after his own stock portfolio.”

• But with the Jan. 5 runoff nearing, the continued emergence of stock-trading news represents one of the few fresh developments in the race since the Nov 3 election.

• For Ossoff… it’s an opportunity to make the home stretch of the campaign even more of a referendum on the incumbent Republican, by merging his personal conduct and his political choices.

• “This is what really pisses people off about politics and politicians, and rich people in general,” said John Anzalone, who was President-elect Joe Biden’s chief pollster in the 2020 presidential race. “It’s a bad dynamic for Perdue—beginning, middle, and end of story.”

• Perdue, meanwhile, has found it necessary to put money behind a rebuttal strategy—a clear sign to Democrats that voters are responding to the new information.

• In a situation where Democrats need to win both races to take the Senate majority, those similar storylines amplify each other, party operatives say, and the incumbents’ similar profiles—both are among the wealthiest members of the Senate—make a concerted attack that much easier.

• Warnock has taken plenty of chances to highlight Loeffler’s stock trading scandal in the runoff campaign… His Monday press conference focused on the lack of COVID-19 relief out of Congress, and the candidate noted Loeffler “dumped millions of dollars of her own stock when she heard about the pandemic.”

• That trend has continued with the steady drip of news reports concerning Perdue’s stock activity, both around the pandemic and well before it. The DOJ’s finding of evidence that Perdue personally directed a major stock sell-off in January puts past instances of his questionably timed trading in a fresh light.

The Week: The naked corruption of Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue

By Ryan Cooper

• …Loeffler and Perdue are also excellent examples of what interests the Republican Party serves — namely, the ultra-rich, which includes both Loeffler and Perdue personally. These are two people who were rich before they got into politics, and leveraged their power as senators to make themselves even more rich — by profiteering off the pandemic. It is government of, by, and for the top 0.1 percent.

• But realistically speaking, it is virtually impossible to believe that all these trades had nothing to do with the two senators. Are we really to believe it was a coincidence that these asset managers started making “there is a pandemic coming” trades the very same day the two were receiving classified briefings on the disaster? Come on.

• Indeed, The New York Times recently reported that Perdue was lying with his blanket denial — he did directly instruct his manager to sell the Cardlytics shares after receiving a cryptic email mentioning “upcoming changes” from the company’s then-CEO. 

• Since then, both Perdue and Loeffler have largely downplayed the pandemic. Unlike Ossoff and Warnock, both have been holding large, in-person rallies. In July, both Loeffler and Perdue came out against extending the boost to unemployment insurance in the CARES Act, and since then neither have answered questions about further economic rescue measures from Atlanta Magazine. Instead, since the election they have amplified Trump’s flagrant lies that Georgia’s Republican governor and secretary of state somehow helped Joe Biden steal the election there.

• If you want a couple senators to govern solely on behalf of their massive asset portfolio while leaving everyone else twisting in the wind, vote Perdue and Loeffler.

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