The FBI is Not Investigating Dianne Feinstein for Insider Trading
The Claim
The FBI is currently investigating U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and her husband for insider trading related to stock sales made as a result of inside knowledge of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Emerging story
In September 2020, a rumor began to circulate on social media that Senator Feinstein was being asked to hand over documents to the FBI as part of an investigation into insider trading predicated on stock sales made by her after receiving intel on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This largely circled around an article published on September 8th, 2020 by the Right Wing Tribune announcing the document hand-over in addition to referencing several other unrelated criminal allegations from the past.
This quickly took off on Twitter and other social media, with many political pundits sharing the article with the same headline. It also spread widely in different versions amongst self-described Q-anon personalities and fringe conspiracy theorists who also linked the story to Chinese influence and other unrelated trades and events.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation has found a few troubling pieces of evidence pointing to the dubious nature of this claim. Most important to note initially is that this claim is actually a “second-try” at forcing this headline to go viral, after a previous attempt failed. This was discovered through an older Twitter post on July 7th by the account @RipTorn18 that shared the same article from the Right Wing Tribune on that date, over two months before its current publication date.
Regardless, both claims are making haphazard reference to news that came out in March through May regarding allegations reported by The New York Times that Senator Feinstein used insider information to influence trades made by her husband, investment banker Richard Blum, of certain biotech holdings ranging from $1.5 - 6 million. The article also focuses on three other Senators, all Republicans who were under similar investigation, with particular focus on Senator Richard Burr, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
At the time, a spokesperson for Feinstein maintained to the Times that all of the Senator’s personal holdings were in a blind trust, that no information had been relayed to her husband related to the trades, and that the Senator had not even been present during the committee hearings that the FBI was referring to. Ultimately, that investigation into the Senator and her husband was closed as of May 26th, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal, given the lack of evidence linking the two. It was also closed for two of the other Republican Senators with the exception of Burr, who is still under investigation.
