Loeffler’s Latest Conflict of Interest Scandal: Unelected Senator Signed Letter Aiding Husband’s $10 Billion Corporate Deal

New Reporting Adds To Kelly Loeffler’s “Complicated Web of Financial Interests And Official Policymaking Actions That Have Marked Her Short Time in Office”

Nonpartisan Ethics Expert: “It Seems The Conflicts Never End” For Loeffler

Senator Kelly Loeffler has once again found herself mired in scandal as a new Daily Beast report reveals that the unelected political mega-donor used her official Senate office to set the stage for her husband’s $10 billion corporate deal. 

Loeffler signed on to a letter to financial regulators in May “urging them not to make changes to consumer credit reporting requirements during the pandemic.” Loeffler’s involvement in the issue was notable because “financial regulation is not in the senator’s portfolio” and she was only one of two GOP senators to sign the letter who did not sit on the Senate Banking Committee. Loeffler even avoided publicizing her involvement. Shortly after signing the letter, “its purpose became neatly aligned with her personal financial interests.” Over the summer, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) — run by Loeffler’s husband, Jeffrey Sprecher — announced a $10 billion deal acquiring home loan data giant Ellie Mae, which “stood to be hurt by the proposal for a credit reporting moratorium.”

Congressional ethics experts have blasted Loeffler for her shady conduct. As a former executive at ICE who retains millions of dollars worth of stock in the company, Loeffler stood to benefit from the multi-billion dollar deal. Nonpartisan ethics experts told the Daily Beast “it seems the conflicts never end” for Loeffler and “we should not need to wonder whether it could have been an instance of her selling out the interests of constituents who were in economic distress in order to maintain the value of her stock portfolio.” This is of course not the first time that Loeffler’s “lengthy web of financial entanglements” have “collided with her public duties,” creating “a myriad of problems and potential conflicts of interest.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The Daily Beast: Kelly Loeffler’s Letter Helped Set Stage for Husband’s $10 Billion Deal

By Sam Brodey

Key Points:

• When Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) added her name to a letter to financial regulators in May urging them not to make changes to consumer credit reporting requirements during the pandemic, it seemed like a good case of home-state politics for the first-year senator.

• But shortly after she signed the letter, its purpose became neatly aligned with her personal financial interests as well. In August, Intercontinental Exchange—the company run by Loeffler’s husband, Jeffrey Sprecher—announced a $10 billion acquisition of home loan data giant Ellie Mae, which had stood to be hurt by the proposal for a credit reporting moratorium.

• Loeffler was a former executive at ICE and retains some $9 million worth of stock in it and in signing that letter she added yet another chapter to an already complicated web of financial interests and official policymaking actions that have marked her short time in office. Like some of those prior chapters, this one almost never became public.

• When Loeffler signed on to the letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Housing Finance Authority, she did not publicize it. Nor did she send a press release on it or put up a tweet about it. It was obtained by The Daily Beast in December.

• But Loeffler’s involvement in the credit reporting issue was notable not just because of the secrecy of it. Financial regulation is not in the senator’s portfolio. Among the 11 GOP senators who signed the May letter, she was one of two who did not sit on the Senate Banking Committee.
  
• “We don’t know why she signed this letter,” said Jordan Libowitz of the nonpartisan ethics watchdog group CREW, “but we should not need to wonder whether it could have been an instance of her selling out the interests of constituents who were in economic distress in order to maintain the value of her stock portfolio.”

• Loeffler seemed to recognize that being perceived as against helping consumers with their credit scores during the pandemic carried some political costs. Not only did she keep her signature on the letter secret, she also introduced a bill in June that would have stopped credit reporting agencies from including medical debts on a person’s credit report, in the event of “unconscionably excessive” medical costs. But that proposal would have left it to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary to define what that was, providing no specific guidance on the threshold.

• The letter Loeffler signed was not the first time that her financial interest in ICE collided with her public duties. In October, she used a bill to remove Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges—which ICE runs—as a cudgel against Collins, as they fought each other to advance to the runoff. But she never actually voted for the bill or cosponsored it, and ICE publicly warned against the legislation, The Daily Beast reported.

• But those who advocate for good governance say the lengthy web of financial entanglements that she and her family have created a myriad of problems and potential conflicts of interest.
  
• “It seems the conflicts never end,” said McGehee in an email. “Undoubtedly, many of these conflicts arise because of the vast wealth of Sen. Loeffler and her husband. But it is notable that other wealthy senators have navigated these issues with more care and finesse.”

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