After coming under fire for selling investments right before the Coronavirus outbreak, Georgia U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler said Wednesday she and her husband are liquidating their individual stock holdings and will be trading in exchange-traded and mutual funds from now on.
In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal, the appointed successor to Johnny Isakson denied accusations of insider trading, and said she and her husband are changing their portfolios to “end media fixation” on the issue even though ethics provisions don’t require it.
Loeffler, who lives in Buckhead, was the chief executive of a subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange, a commodity and financial service provider founded by her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher. He is also the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
Published reports indicated Loeffler and Sprecher bought and sold a total of $1.4 million in stock before financial markets suffered their worst fall since the recession in October 2008.
In the piece, entitled “I Never Traded on Confidential Coronavirus Information,” Loeffler wrote that she has never engaged in direct trading of investment accounts managed by third-party advisers, including Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs:
In its hunger to place blame, the media fixated on a fantasy of improper congressional trading, stemming from a Jan. 24 briefing I and other Senators attended with health officials. But based on contemporaneous reporting and public statements by the officials who provided the briefing, there was no material or nonpublic information discussed. All we did was meet public-health leaders and ask them questions about the emerging virus.
She referenced comments from Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut about the briefing that “what I heard in response to many questions is a tentative answer. . . . We need to know more.”
The full text of Loeffler’s op-ed was distributed to media outlets by her campaign.
Loeffler, a Republican appointed in December by Gov. Brian Kemp to fill Isakson’s unexpired term, is up for election in November.
She’ll be in a “jungle” primary that includes Republican Congressman Doug Collins of northwest Georgia, who was lobbying to be appointed and has been critical of her stock market activities.
In her op-ed, Loeffler said she expected attacks once she began her election campaign, “but these allegations go well beyond what should be considered acceptable. We have spent our entire lives building careers based on integrity and hard work.
“My family’s investment accounts are being used as weapons for an assault on my character at a time when we should all be focused on making our country safe and strong.”
The winner of the November election will serve out the final two years of Isakson’s term.
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