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- Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia has at times made at least 20 stock transactions in just one day, according to a New York Times analysis on Wednesday.
- Perdue made a total of 2,596 trades during his first term in office, the report revealed.
- The senator has faced public scrutiny and been under federal investigation for potential conflicts of interest while stock trading as a member of Congress.
- The news comes as he's in a close race with a Democratic challenger to keep his seat in an upcoming special election on Jan 5.
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Republican Sen. David Perdue has occasionally made at least 20 stock transactions in just one day, according to a New York Times analysis on Wednesday.
The report revealed that during his six years in office, Perdue carried out 2,596 trades, which makes up almost a third of all trades by senators over the same time period. Sometimes, that meant Perdue made 20 or more transactions in the span of a day, The Times noted.
The data comes as Perdue has faced public scrutiny over the past several months for potential conflicts of interest while stock trading as a member of Congress. He drew criticism in the spring after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that he bought stock in a personal protective equipment company on January 24 — the same day he received a classified Senate briefing on the coronavirus. (The Times reported last week that the Justice Department had been investigating the senator's stock activity around the start of the pandemic; that case was dropped without charges.)
The Times details many other transactions Perdue made in his first term. While serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee's cybersecurity panel, Perdue bought and sold shares of a cybersecurity firm called FireEye, the newspaper found. He also bought and sold shares of companies such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Regions Financial, while a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees those firms, the report noted.
One huge transaction in his portfolio, which the Justice Department reportedly looked into, involved a sale worth over $1 million in stocks of Cardlytics, a finance-advertising platform.
Perdue's office denied that the senator's stock transactions break any conflicts of interests and said that he doesn't directly manage his investments, according to The Times.
"Senator Perdue doesn't handle the day-to-day decisions of his portfolio — all of his holdings are managed by outside financial advisers who make recommendations, set strategy, and manage trades and personal finances," John Burke, his campaign's communications director, told The Times.
When asked for comment, Burke referred Insider to his statement in The Times and added that Perdue's "stock activity was reviewed by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, DOJ, and the SEC, all of whom independently cleared Senator Perdue of any and all wrongdoing."
Several other lawmakers have similarly have gained national attention for their trading activity around the onset of the public health crisis, including fellow Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who also faces a runoff election on Jan. 5.
Perdue is also fighting to keep his seat in the upcoming special election in Georgia. His Democratic opponent, Jon Ossoff, has blasted the senator's stock trading on the campaign trail and labeled him a "crook."
On Wednesday, Ossoff repeated the attacks in a retweet of a CNN report highlighting The Times investigation.
"Like I said: he's a crook," he wrote.
Perdue's spokesperson Burke pushed back on Ossoff's attacks, calling them "entirely baseless."
The results of the two Georgia races will determine which party controls the Senate next year. President Donald Trump, who has refused to concede the 2020 presidential election, plans to travel to the state on Saturday to campaign for both Perdue and Loeffler.
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