Ambassadors appointed by President Donald Trump sold off stock while the president downplayed the severity of the coronavirus, CNBC reports. U.S. representatives to Uruguay, France, Morocco and Italy sold stocks in biopharmaceutical companies and other industries earlier this year in transactions that ranged from tens of thousands of dollars to millions. Simultaneously, Trump was saying at public gatherings that the pandemic, which at that point had hit on a much smaller scale, would be “just fine.” A spokesman for the State Department told CNBC that ambassadors Lewis Eisenberg, Jamie McCourt, David Fischer, and Kenneth George had been briefed in February on the possible fallout from the virus. Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) as well as White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney faced scrutiny over sales made soon after closed-door coronavirus briefings. The FBI’s investigation into Loeffler has closed, while Burr’s is ongoing.
