Commerce Secretary Accused of Shorting Financial Disclosure Mandates

By Charles S.Clark, GovExec.com

Unresolved ethics issues involving the finances of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross spilled into the open on Monday when Forbes magazine posted an expose that also questions the treatment of Ross’s financial disclosure forms by the Office of Government Ethics.

Reporter Dan Alexander, in a piece titled “Lies, China And Putin: Solving The Mystery Of Wilbur Ross' Missing Fortune,” followed up on issues raised last year by senators about whether Ross—a wealthy Wall Street investor—had understated his income and mandatory divestments on his 2017 financial disclosure forms.

Alexander’s investigation appears to contradict Ross’s declaration to the ethics office in November 2017 that he had placed his multi-million-dollar holdings in trust. And Alexander uncovered a December 2017 Ross disclosure form that the OGE had not posted publicly.

Among Forbes’ findings:

Ross retained holdings in companies co-owned by the Chinese government, a shipping firm tied to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, a Cypriot bank reportedly caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and a “huge player in an industry Ross is now investigating;”
Ross put some of these interests in a trust for his family members while continuing, as Commerce secretary, to deal with China and Russia on economic matters;
Last fall, five days before reports of his holdings in a Putin-linked shipping firm called Navigator Holdings, Ross sold his stock.


More: https://m.govexec.com/management/2018/06/commerce-secretary-accused-shorting-financial-disclosure-mandates/149085/


The stink of ethics violations just keep on permeating this group.