Why does that seem suspicious?

Because that means that he sold it less than a month before the public announcement. Did he really not know they were thinking about it? It's a government decision, it probably took more than a month, or at least were discussing it.

I'm assuming your reference of "it" is the "sale of the stock" instead of the "sale of the options contract".

It would be suspicious but his "alibi" is that it was part of someone exercising call options that he sold.

Assuming this is true, he actually has no control when the exercise happened, thus no control of the timing of the sale of the stock itself.

This would need to be verified via the brokerage probably through a subpoena, so it's not really a realistic investigation.

I'm not sure why you would think I was referencing the "sale of stock" since my point has been the only interesting day was the "sale of option" date. That's what I'm referring to.

Someone else said that he sold the option the same day he bought the stock. That would clear him from any suspecion. However, that's second hand based on someone saying it was in the article and I misread it (quite possible.)

What I was claiming is that the timing makes me think he might sold the option after getting inside information, specifically so he could say "I had to sell the stock" which is a true an irrelevant fact if you sold the obligation based on that information.

Now, like I said, if he sold the option the same day he bought the stock, then he is clearly innocent. And similarly, if he sold a 1-week ITM option after getting briefed, I think he is clearly guilty (morally, if not legally).

Ah sorry that's my bad on the wrong assumption.