The investigation focused on Perdue’s sale of more than $ 1 million in shares of Cardlytics, a financial company he previously served on the board of directors, in the spring, before the economic downturn fueled by the pandemic of coronavirus, the newspaper reported. A few weeks after the stock was sold, the company’s stock price dropped to $ 29. Perdue then bought back parts of the shares it sold, which are now trading at $ 120 a share, according to the Times. Citing four people with knowledge of the case, the newspaper reported that investigators were examining Perdue’s transactions for “possible evidence of insider trading.”
Scott Grimes, co-founder and CEO of Cardlytics at the time, sent Perdue an email two days before the stock sale that mentioned the “upcoming changes.” According to the Times, investigators concluded that it “contained no significant non-public information and declined to press charges, closing the case this summer.”
In a statement to CNN, Casey Black, a spokesperson for Perdue, said: “Separate reviews by the Department of Justice, the Securities & Exchange Commission and the bipartisan Senate ethics committee have each promptly and independently cleared Senator Lost of any wrongdoing.
“Senator Perdue has always obeyed the law,” Black said in the statement.
CNN contacted the Justice Department for comment on Thursday.
Democrat Jon Ossoff, who will face Perdue in the second round of elections in January, criticized his opponent over the alleged stock sales, saying the Republican refused to debate him in October on the incident. In an interview with CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Wednesday night, Ossoff called Perdue a “con artist who took advantage of his office to get rich.”
Congress passed the Stocks Act in 2012, which prohibited lawmakers from using inside information for financial purposes. Under insider trading laws, prosecutors would have to prove that lawmakers negotiated on the basis of material non-public information they received in violation of their duty to keep it confidential.
Other members of Congress have come under close scrutiny as to whether they are seeking to capitalize on information they have gained from non-public briefings on the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this year, investigators began examining stock transactions by North Carolina Senator Richard Burr. Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican who also faces a runoff in January, and her husband sold 27 shares valued between $ 1.275 million and $ 3.1 million from Jan. 24 to Feb. 14, according to the Senate archives. Investigators probed her stock sales but closed the investigation and Loeffler argued she had done nothing wrong. The Justice Department also shut down its investigation into the sale of shares by Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, and Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California.
