With Advance Knowledge, Members of Congress Dump Stocks

By Peter Hebert

There were two events, which provided insiders with advance knowledge of the crash in stock prices due to panic that would result from news coverage of a global pandemic.

First, on October 18, 2019 in New York City, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, conducted Event 201: A Global Pandemic Drill. That pandemic drill was a simulation, which anticipated what would happen in a global pandemic. The findings were published in article format as well as five videos. "Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before one of these epidemics becomes global—a pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences," according to the Event 201: A Global Pandemic Drill website. One of the broadcasts in the simulation exercise stated, "The global economy was in a free fall."

Second, on January 24, 202, the U.S. Health Committee held a closed door meeting on the COVID-19 and coronavirus outbreak to a fairly small group of insiders. According to the U.S. Senate Health Committee, "On Friday, January 24, the Senate Health Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will host a briefing for all senators with top administration health officials regarding the novel coronavirus outbreak that was first detected in Wuhan, China. Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Washington) released the following statement:

“The novel coronavirus is an emerging public health threat. Senators will have the opportunity to hear directly from senior government health officials regarding what we know about the virus so far, and how our country is prepared to respond as the situation develops.”

This was a closed door meeting to an audience of less than 100 insiders. In that meeting, Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) said, “It’s probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”

According to the Daily Beast, the closed door meeting included administration officials, Robert R. Redfield, the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Anthony Fauci the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The topic was COVID-19 and the coronavirus and the ramifications.

More than likely that briefing followed the several key points outlined in the October 2019 Event 201: A Global Pandemic Exercise, because everything outlined there in the videos has played out.

After the members of Senate were briefed, many sold their shares of stocks in the sectors that in fact got hurt the most.

Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) dumped $150,000 worth of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts prior to the stock losing value. As reported by ProPublica, Barr dumped "$628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on February 13 in 33 separate transactions." Some of the sales included dumping $65,000 in stock tied to Park Hotels & Resorts.

Kelly Loeffler (R-Georgia) sold over $1 million in stocks the same date as the closed door meeting. As reported by the New York Post, Loeffler's husband is the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Stock Exchange. Over a three week period between January 24 and February 14, "Senator Loeffler (R-Georgia) made 27 sales worth between $1,275,000 and $3,100,000, before the market nosedived and the values of her holdings tanked. ... She also purchased stocks on February 14 from two work-from-home-related companies — Citrix, which specializes in teleworking software, and another tech firm, Oracle, according to the Daily Beast.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) sold between $1.5 million to $6 million in stocks in Allogene Therapeutics, which is a publicly traded biotech firm and headquartered in her own state. The stock sales took place on January 31 and February 18.

Jim Inhofe (R- Oklahoma) sold $400,000 in shares of PayPal, Apple and Brookfield Asset Management, a real estate company on January 27.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) sold between $5 million and $25 million in shares of his family's privately held Oshkosh-based Pacur LLC on the March 2. Pacur LLC is "a supplier of specialty plastic packaging materials," as reported in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The stock sales took place in the calm before the media storm and the panic that followed.