© Reuters / Kevin LamarqueSenate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr
Burr (R-North Carolina) found himself under attack from two directions on Thursday. Early in the day, National Public Radio ran a story based on "secret recordings" from a speech he gave in North Carolina in late February, where he gave oddly specific warnings about Covid-19 to an elite group of donors, while keeping the rest of the American public in the dark.
The North Carolina Republican struck back later in the day, accusing NPR on Twitter of "journalistic malpractice" for "knowingly and irresponsibly" misrepresenting the speech, and calling the article a "tabloid-style hit piece."
By then, however, he was taking flanking fire from a different position. Open Secrets, a "nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit" research group tracking money in politics - with George Soros's Open Society Foundation as one of their biggest donors, mind you - published his financial disclosures, showing that Burr and his wife sold over $1 million worth of stocks in corporations that took it on the chin as the Covid-19 pandemic tanked the US stock markets.
Much of the outraged responses to both the NPR and Open Secrets, praising their revelations and demanding Burr be imprisoned - along with the rest of the Republican party, President Donald Trump, and who knows who else - have been the usual suspects promoting the 'Russiagate' conspiracy theory over the past four years.
NPR's article was authored by Tim Mak, a Daily Beast alum who famously co-authored a fake Russiagate bombshell in December 2018, accusing the president's son Donald Trump Jr. of lying to Congress based on misquoting the publicly available transcript.
To make the irony even greater, Burr has been extremely helpful to the 'Russiagate' gang while chairing the Senate Intelligence Committee. For example, he endorsed the infamous "intelligence community assessment" based on wishful thinking. He has also treated the ranking minority member, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) as "co-chair," covering for him even when it emerged that Warner was trying to secretly communicate with the British spy who wrote the debunked anti-Trump "Steele dossier."
None of it availed Burr one bit when they came for his head, of course - the "R" next to his name automatically made him a Trump supporter in the minds of the woke mob. If it turns out to be true that he knew far more about the dangers of the pandemic but chose to keep silent and profit from it, that would indeed be a colossal dereliction of duty. But as his prior record in overseeing the US spy community indicates, it wouldn't have been the first time.
2) Though I'm sure that these - and many others pols - illegally traded on inside information, I seriously doubt we'll hear about it again and, likewise, they'll never be prosecuted for it. SCUM POLS.