In news that shouldn’t shock you at this point, Senator Richard Burr is facing heat for another transaction that calls into question his sense of ethics.

In 2017, Burr sold his Washington, D.C., townhouse at an above-market price to a group headed by John Green, a prominent lobbyist and campaign donor, ProPublica reported on Tuesday.

Green is CEO of lobbying firm Crossroads Strategies, which has lobbied for the pharmaceutical industry, the NRA, and to pass the Right to Try Act, which would limit the liability of health care companies when patients opt for experimental medicines.

While Green was lobbying for Right to Try—and a home-buyer—Burr sat on the Senate health and finance committees and was a co-sponsor of the bill. Green, has donated over $13,000 to Burr’s campaigns in the past and co-hosted at least one fundraiser for the senator, told ProPublica he had not lobbied Burr personally since 2016. 

The townhouse sold off-market, without being listed, for about $900,000, tens of thousands of dollars above market value for the neighborhood by some estimates. Other affiliates in the sale were two associates from Crossroads Strategies, the White House’s former chief digital officer, and a Google lobbyist. They planned to convert the home into an office, a place to hold events, and a place for out-of-town guests to sleep.

If the townhouse was sold above market value, it would qualify as a gift, which Burr didn’t report: “Gifts of significant value from lobbyists are generally banned by Senate ethics rules, and those that aren’t are typically required to be publicly disclosed. Neither Burr nor Green disclosed any such gifts. Gifts that are intended to influence official actions are illegal.”

Burr has previously been criticized for selling up to $1.7 million in stock a week before the coronavirus panic tanked the market and over the sale of shares in an obscure Dutch fertilizer company in 2018 soon before changes in Trump administration policy sent its shares diving. 

Burr, it seems, has not gotten the memo that 50 percent of North Carolinians want him to resign. He hasn’t even listened to Fox News darling Tucker Carlson, who said “there is no greater moral crime than betraying your country in a time of crisis” and called for Burr to quit as well.

Contact digital content manager Sara Pequeño at spequeno@indyweek.com.

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