Richard Burr almost escaped Washington with no defining achievement

by | May 14, 2020 | coronavirus, Editor's Blog | 5 comments

Senator Richard Burr is in trouble. The FBI issued a warrant and confiscated his cell phone last night in its probe of stock trades the Senator made just before the market crashed in March. Burr and his brother-in-law both sold a large amount of stock after Burr received briefings on the coronavirus. Burr claims that he made the decision based on information available to the general public but he wrote an op-ed saying that the U.S. government was prepared to handle a pandemic. 

A former federal prosecutor, Elie Honig, tweeted, “Bad news for Senator Burr. To get a search warrant, a prosecutor must show and a judge must find probable cause that a crime was committed and that evidence of the crime likely will be found.” Clearly, investigators do not believe Burr’s claims of innocence. 

I’ve watched Richard Burr for years. I’ve never thought that he’s an inherently bad or malicious person. He’s just not the brightest bulb in the room and he has very few original thoughts. He wants to do his job and maintain the status quo, whatever that may be. He probably has vague conservative principles but he’s really a party man and he’ll serve the interests of the GOP. Burr is mediocrity to the core. 

Burr has gotten into this mess because benefitting from insider information is part of the status quo he likes. I doubt he thought much about whether selling the stocks was legal or ethical. He just followed the GOP’s Randian mantra of pursuing his self-interest. In Washington, information is currency and he converted his into dollars. I’m sure he thought that what he did is ok because nobody got hurt. 

Burr, though, has two perception problems that lead to doubts about his motives. Back in 2012, Burr was one of only three Senators to vote against a bill that would have explicitly made insider trading among Members of Congress illegal. It’s that bill that he may have violated. 

Just days before selling his stock, Burr wrote an op-ed for Fox News telling the public that U.S. government was prepared to handle the pandemic. I suspect Burr agreed to sign onto the op-ed without much thought of the content or implications. He was just being a good soldier, passing along the disinformation that was standard GOP messaging at the time. The disconnect between reality and what the article said probably never occurred to him. That’s a gray matter problem, but it sure makes him look deceitful. 

Burr has said that he’s not seeking re-election in 2022. His troubles today ensures that he won’t back down from that pledge. Even if he survives this investigation, his career is tainted. He managed to spend almost 30 years in Washington with no significant accomplishments. He’s most know for not wearing socks and driving a Volkswagen Thing. Now, he will likely be most remembered from profiting off of a pandemic. What an ignominious ending to an utterly mediocre career. 

5 Comments

  1. Eleanor Herndon

    I am sickened by Burr’s actions but not surprised. When he could have finally led and made his state proud by standing up to Trump’s tyranny he chose to keep going along and do nothing…nothing! I hope he sees the result of his limp co-chairing of the Intelligence committees (Burr never intended to spot light Trump’s corruption all along). How ironic that his own self serving greedy insider trading have now given Trump and Barr the opportunity to not only throw him under the bus but to more fully discredit the entire Senate Intelligence results. I hope Burr goes to prison and thinks about his party line support of Trump and Trumpism. He is certainly expendable to Trump and Barr to get the results they want. Burr should feel shame for the legacy he has left the state of North Carolina, his family and grand children. What a waste of Senate time and space he’s been.

  2. Frank McGuirt

    Like all N.C. Republican senators from Jesse to the present, Burr has done nothing but vote the party line from day one. None of them, Jesse, East, Liddie Dole, Faircloth, Tillis have championed a single bill to help the average Joe, Jane and their families. Not one program to benefit seniors, children or anyone in between, Not a single road project, building, dam, bridge, nothing have they done for us.

  3. Edwin Finch

    I have a slightly different take. As you say, Burr is a “soldier” in “his group”. You said “Party Man” and I agree. But now that “key” information (about many subjects) is in the hands of the FBI it could be that the group of “being on the right side of history” becomes more important to him than the groups of “greedy Senators” and “Trump Tribe”.

    From my view, I have seen Burr as one of the few GOP Senators that is a reluctant participant in that tribe. Perhaps not as much as Romney, and certainly not nearly as much as Ex Senator Flake and the late Senator McCain, that refused to join the tribe..

    I hope and I pray that Burr will take advantage of the current legal challenge and turn it around as an opportunity to “DO THE RIGHT THING”. (As Senate Intel Committee Chairman over the past years (a position from which he has resigned) , he is in a position to know much.

    Perhaps for instance, he could help “un-twist” what AG Barr “twisted” relative a number of subjects. And provide real information on what was known and when about coronavirus intelligence. Maybe we could learn why Trump praised China’s Ping Xi in the early days, and why Trump deliberately delayed agencies from doing their jobs, and why Trump to this day continues to keep agencies from performing independent of his “heavy hand”.

    The CDC was accepted as the worldwide leader on pandemic outbreaks up until the Trump Administration. Why is it now without voice? Seems to have to clear even a “Hello” with the Trump White House?

    Senator Burr is in a place where he can now help America. It is his call.

    Edwin Finch

  4. Tom Cassell

    What do you make of the point suggesting that AG Bill Barr is trying to discredit the Senate Intelligence Committee Reports released on Russian efforts to interfere with 2016 election?

  5. Collards

    He always championed the LWCF reauthorization.

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