As the COVID pandemic began to eye the United States, officials in Washington D.C. started to make some financially profitable trades, with the markets plunging and rallying, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal.

In January 2020, U.S. citizens mainly remained oblivious to the threat posed by COVID as it spread in China, but health officials were already watching and preparing.

Anthony Fauci reported ten sales of mutual funds and stocks totaling between $157K and $480K in January 2020.

Collectively, Health and Human Services officials reported 60% more sales of stocks and funds in January than the average over the prior 12 months.

By March, agencies across multiple parts of the government were working on measures to safeguard the economy and markets. As those rumblings started, Then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao bought more than $600K in two stock funds. At the same time, her agency was involved in increasing the pandemic response, while her husband (Senator Mitch McConnell) was in charge of negotiating a market-boosting stimulus package.

It’s an alarming sign that not only did officials across multiple government disciplines know what was coming, they decided to profit off it – and took their sweet time lining up ducks they already knew needed to be in a row to protect the public.