Pandemic Profiteer Perdue

"Despicable David" is the new face of racism and corruption in Georgia

Pandemic Profiteer Perdue

As early voting begins in Georgia in the two crucial Senate runoff elections that will decide control of the Senate, the revelations about the corruption, racism and dishonesty of the two Republican candidates are getting even more damning.

I wrote about Georgia Leech Kelly Loeffler last month. Today, I’ll focus on “Despicable David” Perdue.

“Kamala-mala-mala.”

Perdue famously took to the Birther-in-Chief’s MAGA rally stage at a Super-Spreader event in Macon, Georgia in October.

In a transparent attempt to stir up Trump’s white supremacist base, Perdue pretended he didn’t know how to pronounce his Senate colleague Kamala Harris’ name: “Kamala? Kamala? Kamala-mala-mala? I don’t know. Whatever,” he said.

His challenger Jon Ossoff called out Perdue’s racism, tweeting that “Senator Perdue never would have done this to a male colleague. Or a white colleague. And everyone knows it.”

Except, of course…

… In July, after Perdue denied his campaign was engaging in anti-Semitic propaganda by enlarging his Jewish opponent’s nose in a campaign ad, Ossoff tweeted that “literally no one believes” Perdue’s explanation.

In October, in a debate with Jon Ossoff, Perdue stood pale and stony-faced as Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff unleashed a torrent of facts about Perdue’s failure to help Georgians suffering and dying from Covid-19, even as he spent the first part of the year trading on the Classified intelligence he was getting—and the second part of the year “fending off multiple federal investgations” into those trades.

Perdue was, of course, unable to defend himself against the allegations because they were all true. When the time came to debate Ossoff again, Perdue ran like a chicken, Not once. But twice.

Why is a sitting Senator so afraid to face his constituents to answer for his own behavior while in office?

Perdue’s History of Insider Trading

Unlike the unelected “Looting Loeffler,” who wasn’t sworn into her Senate seat until January 2020, Senator David Perdue got a headstart on insider trading long before the coronavirus pandemic began.

As The New York Times reported last month, Perdue was guilty of “making large and ultimately profitable purchases of shares in a Navy contractor in 2018 just before taking over as chair of a Senate subcommittee overseeing the Navy fleet.”

From The Times:

In the six weeks before the January 2019 announcement that Mr. Perdue was taking over as chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower, he bought a total of $40,000 to $290,000 worth of (Navy contractor) BWX… In the month after his appointment, the stock jumped more than 25 percent.

At the time, a spokeswoman said, “Senator Perdue doesn’t manage his trades, they are handled by outside financial advisors without his prior input or approval.”

That was a lie. And, as Judd Legum noted here on Substack last month, it is just one of eight lies Perdue and his people have told in relation to his insider trading since the revelations of his pandemic profiteering—and his Martha Stewart-style trading in financial firm Cardlytics (following a tip from the company’s CEO)—first broke last spring.

The Pandemic Profiteer

The idea of criminally profiting from the COVID-19 pandemic is so repugnant that even the Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr vowed a federal crackdown in March, telling those hoping to make a quick buck by hoarding medical masks, “you will be hearing a knock on your door.”

David Perdue looked to make more than a few bucks on masks. As soon as he began receiving Classified briefings about the virus in January he ramped up his stock trades ditching companies set to fall amid lockdowns—and splurging on companies who would profit from sickness and death, including manufacturers of PPE. And body bags.

As the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported in April:

U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s financial portfolio saw heavy trading during the month of March, a period during which Congress passed three different spending bills to address the spread of COVID-19 and the markets took a turn for the worse.

Perdue’s pandemic-related trades are even more despicable than his “large and ultimately profitable purchases of shares” in the Navy contractor that surged as soon as he began influencing spending in the Navy fleet. Why? Because Perdue made no secret of his support for increased military spending.

His pandemic trades not only benefited from his access to Classified information—they also stand in sharp contrast to the confidence he was expressing to the public about “the government’s coronavirus response and… guidance for staying healthy and safe.”

2,596 Trades in One Term

As the Times reported on December 2, Perdue is the Senate’s “most prolific stock trader by far, sometimes reporting 20 or more transactions in a single day…. His 2,596 trades, mostly in stocks but also in bonds and funds, roughly equal the combined trading volume of the next five most active traders in the Senate.”

Amid news today of Russia’s massive hack of the U.S. government and private companies, it’s also worth noting that:

Beginning in 2016, the senator bought and sold FireEye stock 61 times, at one point owning as much as $250,000 worth of shares in the company.

As The Washington Post originally reported last week, Russia’s hack of the U.S. government was powered by the “sensitive hacking tools” they obtained from FireEye:

FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia said the hackers stole sensitive hacking tools that the company uses to detect weaknesses in customers’ computer networks and that could be turned back against the same customers or others. He said they primarily went after information related to certain government customers.

Not only did Pandemic Profiteer Perdue make money trading on inside information about the virus. As a member of the Senate’s cybersecurity subcommittee, instead of actually protecting us, Perdue has been busy buying and selling the stock of the company that was supposed to be protecting us.

On January 5, Georgia has the chance to tell the world that Perdue’s racism and corruption are unacceptable.

Vote your Ossoff.

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