WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Richard Burr will step aside as chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, after the FBI seized his mobile telephone in a major escalation of a probe of his stock trades prior to the decline brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Burr called him on Thursday early morning to notify him of his decision to move aside momentarily during the investigation.
” We concurred that this choice would be in the best interests of the committee and will work at the end of the day tomorrow,” McConnell said in a statement.
Burr has actually denied wrongdoing and said he relied entirely on news reports to guide decisions on stock sales, amid reports he and other senators offered shares after private briefings on the dangers of the coronavirus crisis.
He informed press reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday he chose to step aside since he did not desire the investigation to distract the intelligence committee from its work.
” I believed this was the best thing to do,” Burr stated.
Burr’s lawyer, Alice Fisher, said in a statement that Burr was “actively working together” with the government query.
Understood for bipartisanship, the Senate panel is quickly to release an extensive report led by Burr on Russia’s participation in the 2016 U.S. governmental election. U.S. intelligence identified that Moscow sought to meddle in the campaign to enhance the Trump candidateship.
Moscow rejects such action