DRIP, DRIP, DRIP: Loeffler Sold Stock in Travel Company One Day Before Trump Banned European Flights to U.S. [Bloomberg]

One Day After Selling the Travel Company Stock, Its Value “Declined by More Than 11 Percent”

Loeffler Took “Defensive Steps” To Protect Her Massive Fortune Before Economy Nosedived While to Publicly Claiming “The Economy Is Strong”

Alarming new details continue to emerge surrounding unelected “political mega-donor” Senator Kelly Loeffler’s stock selloff scandal. Days after we learned Loeffler and her husband bought shares in a company that “makes COVID-19 protective garments,” another disclosure shows she dumped stock in an online travel booking company right before President Trump announced a ban on flights from Europe to the United States and online travel reservations “collapsed.” 

Loeffler has been in hot water for her “unseemly” Wall Street deals ever since The Daily Beast first reported over two weeks ago that she offloaded millions of dollars in stocks while buying shares in a company that makes teleconferencing software in the days and weeks following a private, all-senators briefing on the emerging coronavirus pandemic — all while publicly downplaying the threat. 

Facing bipartisan backlash, calls for investigations, and concerns about down-ticket damage from Georgia Republicans, Loeffler is already seeing support from deep-pocketed Washington conservative groups dry up as she struggles to defend her and her husband’s “timely trades” under the threat of a potential federal inquiry. Loeffler’s scandal is proving to be a “major political liability” for national Republicans looking to hold on to her Senate seat as the GOP’s decision to appoint her is looking more and more like a “major strategic miscalculation for Republicans.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Bloomberg: Georgia Senator Sold Travel Shares Ahead of Trump Flight Ban

By Greg Farrell and Billy House

April 2, 2020

Key Points:

• Senator Kelly Loeffler sold a total of $46,027 worth of stock in an online travel company in the day leading up to President Donald Trump’s announcement of a ban on most European travel to the U.S.

• Though the transactions were relatively small for Loeffler and her husband — whose net worth is estimated at more than $500 million — the sales represented an about-face.

• Loeffler, a Georgia Republican, had just days earlier purchased the shares, in Booking Holdings, jointly with her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, the chief executive officer of Intercontinental Exchange, parent firm of the New York Stock Exchange

• Booking Holdings provides online bookings for flights, hotels and other travel-related services, all of which have collapsed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

• The stock was purchased on March 6, the day that Loeffler traveled with Trump, visiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta for an update on the coronavirus response, and continuing on a later flight to Florida.

• It was sold on March 10 and 11. After the markets closed on March 11, the president announced his European travel restrictions.

• Last month, news reports about her sales and purchases of other stocks — after government briefings to Congress on the virus — caused a stir, with critics questioning whether she was sufficiently focused on her constituents. Some stock sales by another senator, Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, have prompted a government inquiry.

• Her messages on Facebook try to maintain a focus on her efforts to combat the coronavirus and keep Georgia strong. “So, all of these stories that you are seeing attacking me are nothing but fake news. These are politically motivated attacks that prey on the fears of Americans during a global pandemic,” she said in a video posted on Wednesday.

• The disclosures present a fuller portrait of the couple’s trading activities this year. The activity shows their advisers taking a number of defensive steps as the markets began to slide.

• The new, detailed financial disclosures from Loeffler show that she and her husband bought $590,557 in stocks between Feb. 24 and March 13, and sold stocks worth $845,557 from Feb. 20 to March 9.

Read the full story here.

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