Rich US senators sell sell sell just before coronavirus pandemic went wild!!

At a time of national and global crisis it is always galling to hear that certain privileged sections of society have somehow managed to save their investments because they were in the know, or at least more in the know about what was about to happen than 99 per cent of the rest of the us. So there has been an outcry over the disclosure that certain US senators who had been receiving classified briefings on the likelihood of an imminent financial disaster as a result of the coronavirus crisis went out and sold huge stocks of shares in their investment portfolios to make sure they were protected from a Wall Street crash. If they took such action solely as a result of being given insider information that would not only be morally wrong, it would be unlawful because Congress regulations state quite clearly that privileged information cannot be exploited for personal gain. The main focus of attention seems to be on Senator Richard Burr, Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who reportedly sold between $628,000 and $1.72 million worth of shares on February 13. This was one week before the stock market started to plummet. Senator Burr has denied that he sold the shares as a result of classified briefings but based his judgment solely on reading the newspapers. He has wisely referred the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee to try and prove his innocence. I have no idea whether Senator Burr is clever enough or disciplined enough to compartmentalise information he received as a result of his position as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and push it to one side of his brain while reading the newspapers and coming to a conclusion about the need to sell his shares based only on the latter (the newspapers) and not remotely on the former (the compartmentalised bit in his brain). I am sure Senator Burr is an honourable man but can he really say that it was not an accumulation of facts and predictions from everywhere, including those classified briefings, that played a part in his decision-making? It's probably impossible to know. Well, he knows of course. But impossible for the Ethics Committee to decide. There would have been millions of people tryng to make the same judgment before selling shares in the week leading up to the stock market plundering, and there WAS a lot of reporting, warning of possible trouble ahead. But the newspaper reports and TV reports were just that. They weren't based on insider knowledge, insider government knowledge. But it will never be proved. All I know is that the relatively modest amount of investments I have, looked after by one of the most reputable and knowledgeable investment companies in existence, has dropped in value by an alarming amount in the last few months. Definitely no insider knowledge there. I am not happy about it, and not particularly inspired by the revelation that a senator, and three others apparently, saved their bacon with a very very astute nick-of-time stocks sale. I'm just envious really but there is a twitch of suspicion.