May 14, 2020 | 2:23pm | Updated May 14, 2020 | 5:48pm
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office says she was contacted by the FBI about stock sales her husband made early in the coronavirus pandemic.
The California Democrat is one of four senators facing scrutiny for stock sales early in the crisis. The FBI served a warrant Wednesday on Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and seized his cellphone.
Feinstein spokesman Tom Mentzer told The Post that she was contacted last month. Feinstein provided the FBI written answers, he said.
Mentzer said in a statement he believes that the offices of Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) also were contacted by the FBI.
Spokespeople for Loeffler and Inhofe did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
“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,” Mentzer said.
“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,” Mentzer said.
Feinstein sold $500,001 to $1 million worth of stock in a company called Allogene Therapeutics on Jan. 31, less than a month before panic about the virus caused markets to plunge, Senate records show. Her husband sold $1,000,001 to $5 million worth of Allogene shares on Feb. 18, according to financial disclosures.
Burr, who was privy to early intelligence reports on the pandemic, sold as much as $1.72 million in stocks weeks before the market crashed. He lost his chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday amid the FBI investigation.
Loeffler and her husband sold millions after she attended a Jan. 24 private briefing for senators on COVID-19. She said the sales were made by outside advisers.
Feinstein and Inhofe said their stock sales were unrelated to non-public information and their reps said they did not attend the private briefing for senators.
