Paul’s spokeswoman said in a statement that the senator’s failure to disclose the trade had been an oversight.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul ‘s wife reportedly lost money on a stock purchase for a company that makes a COVID-19 treatment, an investment reported 16 months late. Paul filed a mandatory disclosure Wednesday that revealed on February 26, 2020, Kelley Paul purchased somewhere between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of stock in the company Gilead, which makes the antiviral drug remdesivir. The investment was made after Congress was briefed on the threat of COVID-19, but before the public was largely aware of it. The senator’s spokeswoman, Kelsey Cooper, said in a statement that Kelley Paul had used her own money for the investment and ultimately lost money on it. Cooper called the senator’s failure to disclose the trade an oversight. “Last year, Dr. Paul completed the reporting form for an investment made by his wife using her own earnings, an investment which she has lost money on,” Cooper said. “In the process of preparing to file his annual financial disclosure for last year, he learned that the form was not transmitted and promptly alerted the filing office and requested their guidance. In accordance with that guidance he filed both reports yesterday.” Under the Stock Act, a 2012 law enacted to keep lawmakers from insider trading, the purchase of the stock should have been reported within 45 days. For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below. Word of the looming danger posed by the coronavirus began to spread through Congress in late January 2020, after members received the first of several briefings on the economic and public health threat that it posed.
