One day after FBI agents served a search warrant to Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and seized his cell phone in an investigation over controversial stock trades, FBI agents also tracked down a leading Democratic senator for questioning.
According to reports, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was interrogated by FBI agents over the timing of controversial stock market moves her husband made right before the deadly Wuhan virus pandemic swept across America.
Feinstein was briefed with secret information on the likely scale of the pandemic as part of her duties in the Senate.
Just before the economic downturn, her husband allegedly made large stock market moves that protected their family’s substantial fortune.
Feinstein’s office dismissed the questioning as “basic” and said the California senator was happy to cooperate with investigators.
“Senator Feinstein was asked some basic questions by law enforcement about her husband’s stock transactions, as I think all offices in the initial story were,” her spokesman told Fox News on Thursday.
“She was happy to voluntarily answer those questions to set the record straight and provided additional documents to show she had no involvement in her husband’s transactions. There have been no follow up actions on this issue,” he said.
Feinstein declined to follow her colleague, Burr, in resigning her position on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Burr announced Thursday that he was temporarily giving up his role as chairman of the intelligence committee pending the results of the FBI investigation.
According to reports, Feinstein’s husband sold between $1.5 to $6 million of stock in the biotech company Allogene Therapeutics after the California Democrat was briefed on the coronavirus pandemic in a closed-door meeting.
The stock lost significant value during the economic downturn, but the company’s stock price has rebounded this week after clinical trials of a cancer drug proved successful.
Feinstein has denied having any involvement in her husband’s financial decisions.
“I have no input into his decisions. My husband in January and February sold shares of a cancer therapy company,” Feinstein said in a statement at the time. “This company is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus and the sale was unrelated to the situation.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article