This is absolutely insane, and possibly a crime under the STOCK Act. Thanks to a secret audio recording NPR just this morning, we know for a fact he did this based on information he was getting from the highest levels of the government and sharing only with high dollar donors (who were paying up to $10,000 for the privilege).

Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $582,029 and $1.56 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 29 separate transactions....Burr is not a particularly wealthy member of the Senate: Roll Call estimated his net worth at $1.7 million in 2018, indicating that the February sales significantly shaped his financial fortunes and spared him from some of the pain that many Americans are now facing.

Richard Burr is 64 years old. If he had anything remotely resembling an appropriate risk allocation for his age (about 35% in the stock market), those transactions likely represent every penny he had invested in the stock market.

He deserves serious prison time for this.