Republican senator distances himself from Raytheon stock buy

WASHINGTON (AP) – The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has quickly unloaded Raytheon stock following a report that the recent purchase was made after he urged the President to boost defense spending by billions of dollars.
The Daily Beast first reported that a financial adviser to Senator James Inhofe bought between $50,000 and $100,000 of Raytheon stock Tuesday. Just days earlier the Oklahoma Republican had met with the President and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to discuss the military’s budget. That led to separate reports that said the President would ask Congress to provide the Pentagon with record-level spending of $750 billion in 2020.
Leacy Burke, a spokeswoman for Inhofe, says the senator had no involvement in the Raytheon transaction and wasn’t aware of it “until it came through the system.”