David Perdue's Corruption Reaches Far Beyond the Suspicious Stock Trades

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page

05 December 20

avid Perdue’s corruption reaches far beyond the suspicious stock trades that have previously been reported. Aside from being the Senate’s most prolific stock trader, making a staggering 2,596 trades during his term, a deep dive into his trading indicates he has been making suspiciously well-timed trades long before the pandemic — often in industries that he oversees as a senator. Among them:

— Perdue bought and sold FireEye stock — a federal contractor that provides malware detection and threat-intelligence services — 61 times, beginning in 2016. Nearly half of those trades were made when he sat on the cybersecurity panel, and during that time FireEye secured a $30 million subcontract with the Army Cyber Command, which happens to be located in Perdue’s home state of Georgia. Perdue reported $15,000 in capital gains from FireEye trades in 2018.

— Perdue began buying stock in BWX Technologies, a company that supplies nuclear components for Navy submarines, about a month before he took over as chairman of the seapower subcommittee. As chairman, he added a multibillion-dollar nuclear submarine to the nation’s defenses — exactly the type that BWX Technologies provides components for. He earned as much as $50,000 in capital gains when he sold the company’s stock.

— Perdue began buying stock in Regions Financial, a mid-size regional lender in Alabama, in May 2017. Four months later, Perdue co-sponsored a Senate bill proposing to loosen regulations governing banks like Regions, and a version of his bill was signed into law by Trump in May 2018. Between Perdue’s first purchase of Regions stock and the time Trump signed his bill into law, the bank’s shares increased by 35 percent. Regions’ CEO has contributed to Perdue’s re-election campaign.

Those are just the highlights of his suspicious stock trades. One thing is clear: David Perdue is in the Senate to enrich himself at the expense of everyone else — not to serve the people of Georgia. Meanwhile, Jon Ossoff has dedicated his career to fighting and exposing corruption. Let’s elect him and Raphael Warnock to the Senate, and send Perdue and his fellow self-dealer Kelly Loeffler packing.