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March 20, 2020 In the US, the scandal of senators widens who, in January, sold their shares before the coronavirus emergency sank the stock exchange. Republican Senator Richard Burr, whose name circulated yesterday, was joined by the names of Kelly Loefner, Dianne Feinstein, Ron Johnson and Jim Inhofe.

During a private meeting, which took place on January 24, Burr, who for his role could access confidential information from the government, would have informed the other senators of the seriousness of the coronavirus epidemic, inviting them to take care of their financial investments. Too bad that Burr had publicly reassured the Americans about the limited effects of the infection. Both the head of the commission, elected in North Carolina, and Kelly Loeffler, elected in Georgia, sold their shares precisely in the days when President Donald Trump diminished the scope of the epidemic.

The senator is the wife of the president of the New York Stock Exchange, one of the world's leading stock exchanges, Jeffrey Sprecher. On Twitter, Loeffler defended herself from the accusations, claiming that she didn't know anything: "I don't make the decisions on my portfolio, but it's the third parties who decide and without my husband or I being able to know."

The senator appears to have sold the securities on January 24, the day of the reserved meeting. Burr, according to the investigative site ProPublica, sold its shares on February 13, for a value of up to 1.7 million dollars. ProPublica would have come into possession of a tape with the recording of a speech given by Burr during a reserved event in an exclusive club. On that occasion the senator had revealed to colleagues and investors the imminent health disaster: "I can tell you that we are at the level of the 1918 epidemic", the so-called "Spanish flu" which caused about one hundred million deaths worldwide.

Two other members of the Intelligence Commission benefited from the confidential information while the Americans were reassured daily: Democratic Senator Feinstein and Republican Inhofe, who sold their titles immediately after the meeting. The fifth name is that of the Republican Senator of Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, also among those who had publicly diminished the extent of the epidemic: "It will not be a death sentence - he said in a television interview - except for the 3- 4 percent of the population, but I also think much less. " Meanwhile, however, Johnson had taken steps to sell all his titles.

A few weeks after the confidential meeting, with the spread of alarming news and the first admissions of the government, the stock market collapsed. According to media reports, most of the securities sold by the senators then lost between 30 and 39 percent.