Uh Oh: FBI Serves Search Warrant On Senator Richard Burr, Seizes His Phone
I'm wondering how Senator Richard Burr feels about phone encryption right about now? As you may recall, the notoriously pro-surveillance Senator has whined about phone encryption at great length and even introduced legislation that would effectively end encryption on phones.
And yet, the FBI just served a search warrant on him and seized his phone as part of its investigation into claims that he engaged in insider trading:
Federal agents seized a cellphone belonging to Sen. Richard Burr on Wednesday night as part of a Justice Department probe into stock transactions he made ahead of the sharp market downturn sparked by concerns over the coronavirus, a law enforcement official told the Los Angeles Times.
The North Carolina Republican turned over his phone after agents served a search warrant at his home in the Washington area, the official told the newspaper.
This likely means that there's even more going on than has been made public so far, and it's unlikely to be good for Senator Burr. As former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti explains, to get that search warrant, it means that a judge was convinced that Burr likely engaged in insider trading and that there was evidence to that effect on his phone:
This means that a federal judge concluded that there is good reason to believe that Senator Burr engaged in insider trading and that evidence of his insider trading is contained on his cell phone. https://t.co/OkWEjyHAJr
- Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) May 14, 2020
And as others have noted, the FBI -- for whatever faults it might have (and they are many) -- does not just show up at a Senator's home with a warrant on a hunch.
Holy moly. Showing up at the home of a U.S. Senator and executing a warrant is not business as usual and not a step the FBI would take lightly. https://t.co/XKgwP5zj65
- Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) May 14, 2020
Of course, the bigger issue was that while he was selling all those stocks (including a bunch of hotel stocks), he was claiming publicly that everything was fine and that the US had COVID-19 under control. Frankly, that part should be the bigger scandal, but unfortunately it won't be.