Kelley Paul, wife of the outspoken Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) came under fire this week for reportedly making a small stock purchase in February 2020 for an anti-viral drug that looked like a promising treatment for COVID-19 at the time.
Sen. Paul made a mandatory disclosure under the Stock Act for his wife’s purchase of Gilead Sciences stock on February 26, 2020, which was valued somewhere between $1,000 and $15,000. Gilead Sciences is behind Remdesivir, which was granted emergency use authorization in May 2020 by the Food and Drug Administration.
Although the Stock Act requires disclosure within 45 days, the transaction was reported around 16 months later. Senator Paul’s spokesperson Kelsey Cooper indicated that the delay was due to the original filing not having been submitted properly.
“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. “This was done in the appropriate reporting time window.”
“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 today,” Cooper explained.
Several people pounced on the opportunity to scorn the senator for not reporting the stock purchase timely and accused the couple of insider trading after the Senator was reportedly the only one to vote against an emergency bill aimed to respond to the pandemic.
“The senator ought to have an explanation for the trade and, more importantly, why it took him almost a year and a half to discover it from his wife,” said James Cox, a Duke University law professor to the Washington Post.
“Just 8 days after Rand Paul bought stock in Gilead, he was the only Senator to vote against an emergency bill to curb the COVID-19 outbreak,” wrote Charles Booker on Twitter, a Democrat seeking to unseat Paul in 2022. “He waited 16 months to disclose this information. We need a full investigation of Rand Paul’s insider trading.”
But insider trading seems unlikely as Kelley Paul noted in her defense that the World Health Organization (WHO) had already publically announced Remdesivir as a potential cure.
At the time I invested, the news was full of frightening images of Italian hospitals overrun with Covid. The head of the WHO publicly called Remdesciver a promising treatment, prompting my investment in what I hoped might be a cure. This information was in the news and public.
— Kelley Paul (@KelleyAshbyPaul) August 13, 2021
Stock prices for Gilead reacted to the announcement by the WHO at least two days prior to Paul’s investment.
Shares of Gilead $GILD are up over 3% after WHO said the drugmaker’s antiviral remdesivir may be effective against the coronavirus. @SonenshineJ breaks it down. https://t.co/B7CmjYvGtJ pic.twitter.com/eDt7vobNkn
— TheStreet (@TheStreet) February 24, 2020
Kelley Paul went on to defend herself and her husband from the attacks to clarify that they are not “anti-vaxx” and that she and her elderly parents were vaccinated.
Sadly remdesciver was not a cure, but my small investment in it, in which the stock price dropped after I bought it, was based on encouraging info from the WHO. I would like to correct another falsehood. While Rand and I are against forced vaccination, we are not “anti-vaxx.
— Kelley Paul (@KelleyAshbyPaul) August 13, 2021
I got my elderly parents vaccinated as soon as it was available to them, and I myself chose to be vaccinated earlier this summer. That said, I believe everyone should be free to make that choice themselves, without fear of bullying, shaming, and threats.
— Kelley Paul (@KelleyAshbyPaul) August 13, 2021
The accusations are laughable in light of much more serious accusations against four of Sen. Paul’s colleagues, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who dumped millions of dollars in stock just days before the stock market crashed due to the pandemic.
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Ashley Hill is a California native that loves God, guns and liberty. She holds a B.A. in History and Spanish and a Master's in Public Administration.
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