As U.S. stock markets plummeted last September, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual-fund shares and used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
The Illinois senator’s 2008 financial disclosure statement shows he sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696 on Sept. 19, the day after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged congressional leaders in a closed meeting to craft legislation to help financially troubled banks. The same day, he bought $43,562 worth of Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B stock, the disclosure shows. Altogether, Durbin sold investments worth $116,000 in September. By Oct. 2, he had invested $98,046 in Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway, the form shows.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index plunged 4.7 percent last Sept. 15 after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp.’s government-engineered takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. By the end of October, the index had fallen 22.6 percent.
“Durbin was doing what a lot of other people were doing, taking a look at their savings” and seeing it “start to tank and trying to preserve some level of wealth by getting out of the market,” said his spokesman, Joe Shoemaker.
Shoemaker said Durbin didn’t capitalize on anything Paulson and Bernanke told congressional leaders at the Sept. 18 meeting.
Whatever information Paulson gave lawmakers wasn’t secret or classified and was disclosed publicly the next day, Shoemaker said.
Outside of Congress, this is called insider trading and is a crime.
Inside of Congress, and especially in Illinois, it’s just accepted corruption as usual.
Like Dodd and Obama getting financial aid from crooks to help buy their houses. Like special jobs opening up to pay politician family members hundreds of thousands. Jobs that appear only for “special” people… like Blago wanted for his wife in exchange for a Senate seat, like Michelle Obama got once her husband became a Senator (and the job disappeared when she left it).
Just the normal perks of power.
#29 Dianna, that’s a perceptive comment. I didn’t think much about the motivation for this attack, but I remember Durbin’s comments about the banks that you’ve noted. With banking regulatory reform on the horizon, and an unfriendly senator making noise, it certainly makes sense.
All of the funds Durbin sold have actually outperformed the Berkshire-B stock that he replaced them with, but that may not be enough to stop a good smear campaign.
#31, Sweeny,
Like Dodd and Obama getting financial aid from crooks to help buy their houses.
Maybe you could enlighten us as to which “crooks” Dodd and Obama got financing from to buy their houses?
Oh, that’s right they didn’t and you are just trolling. Again. Very tactful.