U.S. Sen. Richard Burr had "material nonpublic information" about the coronavirus and its potential economic impact when he dumped $1.6 million in stock early last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in federal court filings this month.

Burr's brother-in-law sold off stock the same day, starting the process a minute after a call from the Republican senator from North Carolina, an SEC investigator said in a court filing, citing phone records.

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Burr, who's retiring next year from the Senate, has faced scrutiny for his early pandemic stock trades since ProPublica first reported on them last year – particularly since Burr was assuring the public around the same time about U.S. readiness for a pandemic. The journalism nonprofit broke the latest details Thursday.

A U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the trades ended early this year without charges, but the SEC's inquiry remains, and the commission asked a federal judge late last week to force Burr's brother-in-law, Gerald Fauth, to comply with a subpoena and sit for an interview. Burr's wife is Fauth's sister.

The commission said Fauth's attorney initially didn't return investigators' calls, then said Fauth's health was too precarious for an "incredibly stressful" virtual interview with government attorneys. The SEC noted, in details that go on for nearly three pages, Fauth's ability to continue his federal appointment to the National Mediation Board, which mediates labor disputes in the U.S. railroad and airline industries.

Fauth's renomination to that position moved this week through the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, a committee Burr sits on. There was no mention at the meeting, which Burr attended, of the investigation.

WRAL News left a message Thursday for Fauth's attorney and with Burr's press office seeking comment.

ProPublica had previously reported that Burr and Fauth sold stocks on the same day, but the new SEC filings revealed for the first time that the two men spoke that day.

According to a sworn declaration from an attorney in the SEC's New York regional office, Burr called his own broker at 8:54 a.m. on Feb. 13, 2020, directing the sale of some $1.65 million in stock.

At 11:32 a.m. Burr called Fauth, and the call lasted 50 seconds, the filing states.

At 11:33 a.m. Fauth called a broker, whom he couldn't reach immediately. At 11:35 a.m. he called a second broker, the document states, and told her to "sell several stocks in his wife's account."

The SEC attorney also said in her statement that Burr had more information at the time than the public, due to his various Senate committee postings, and because of relationships with former staffers then directing "key aspects" of the U.S. government's pandemic response.

"It appears from the commission's investigation that Senator Burr possessed material nonpublic information concerning COVID-19 and its potential impact on the U.S. and global economies, including but not limited to information he had learned through his position on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence," the document states.

This, ProPublica said Thursday, is the first time the SEC has made this allegation public.

Burr has said previously that his stock trades were based solely on information available to the public at the time.