We know now that Donald Trump's election to the American presidency was a Bat Signal to every shameless grifter this fine country has to offer. Confidence men and scam artists from sea to shining sea swarmed towards Our Nation's Capital, clambering over one another to make a murky home for themselves in the newly remodeled Swamp. Some of them are in the president's own family. All of them know they've stumbled into the jewelry store, and the clock is ticking. Smash the glass and grab everything you can.

One of the most consistently underrated cartoon oligarchs now plaguing our national government is Wilbur Ross. The Secretary of Commerce is a Businessman with a long and storied career making Business Deals. Also, he allegedly stole $120 million from his various business partners over the years, which caused the godless socialists at Forbes magazine to announce he "could rank among the biggest grifters in American history." We spent all that time chasing Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke, but the Grift King was right in front of us this whole time.

Naturally, this public servant has brought a viper's nest of conflicts-of-interest and ethics issues into office. The latest example comes to us via the Center for Public Integrity:

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross twice submitted sworn statements to ethics officials saying he had divested stock that he in fact still owned...Ross was supposed to sell his BankUnited, Inc. stock, valued at up to $15,000, within 90 days of his Senate confirmation, according to his federal ethics agreement — in other words, by the end of May 2017.

The Washington Post Getty Images

Ross twice submitted disclosure reports to federal ethics officials saying he had divested the stock — once in a transaction report from May 2017 and another time in his annual financial disclosure from August 2018. But in October, Ross filed another transaction report with ethics officials acknowledging he had had not divested the BankUnited stock when he said he did — and continued to own it until October 1, 2018. The Office of Government Ethics has not yet certified this latest transaction report, but released the document in response to a request from the Center for Public Integrity.

This is not the first time Ross has blatantly lied about whether he still owns a stock which presents a conflict of interest in his role as Commerce Secretary. The CPI was also on his case in July, with a whole lot more money on the line:

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears to have earned seven figures from his failure to divest stock holdings until months after he was required to do so...Ross was supposed to sell his Invesco Ltd. stock, valued at between $10 million and $50 million, within 90 days of his Senate confirmation, according to his ethics agreement. He was confirmed on Feb. 27, 2017, which meant he was required to divest before the end of May 2017.

But in filings publicly released last month, Ross acknowledged he failed to sell his stock in Invesco until December 2017. By that time, his stock’s value had increased by between approximately $1.2 million to $6 million over its value at the end of May, depending on Ross’ actual number of shares, a figure that hasn’t previously been reported.

Like pretty much everyone else in this president's orbit, Ross is a wannabe oligarch using his time in putative public service to further enrich himself. He just flies under the radar because he's an old codger who's always falling asleep in public—not, say, an acting attorney general who used to peddle Big Dick Toilets.

Ross appears on Lou Dobbs Tonight on December 13. BAUZEN Getty Images

Like Trump, Ross also has flashes of amazing incompetence. He has apparently managed to lose millions mid-grift. But more than that, he's a narcissist in the Trumpian mold: a year before he was nominated to the position, he was listed on the Forbes 400 with $2.9 billion in assets. He called up the magazine to insist he was actually worth $3.7 billion. But a year later, as part of the confirmation process when he came greasing into public life, Ross had to submit a financial disclosure form—one that listed his assets at $700 million. The magazine set about removing him from the billionaires list entirely on the basis that he is not a billionaire.

This, Forbes tells us, simply would not stand:

Ross protested, citing trusts for his family that he said he did not have to disclose in federal filings. "You're apparently not counting those, which are more than $2 billion," he said. When asked for documentation, the 79-year-old demurred, citing "privacy issues." Told that Forbes nonetheless planned to remove him from the list for the first time in 13 years, he responded: "As long as you explain that the reason is that assets were put into trust, I'm fine with that." And when did he make the transfer that allowed him to not disclose over $2 billion? "Between the election and the nomination."

Never mind the obvious corruption this would entail. Incoming government officials should not be permitted to "transfer" funds they really still control, then pretend those assets aren't theirs. Look at what happened when the president did it!

Ross peers at a kindred spirit. The Washington Post Getty Images

But the real Trumpishness was still to come.

So began the mystery of Wilbur Ross' missing $2 billion. And after one month of digging, Forbes is confident it has found the answer: That money never existed. It seems clear that Ross lied to us, the latest in an apparent sequence of fibs, exaggerations, omissions, fabrications and whoppers that have been going on with Forbes since 2004.

This is almost exactly what Trump did to ensure he could kick around the Forbes lists year after year. Except our president would call under an assumed name—John Barron—and rant about how rich Donald Trump was. Imagine how deranged you have to be to possess hundreds of millions of dollars, but still feel the need to call up strangers at a magazine and tell them you have twice as much money. Imagine how deeply you'd require the admiration of others to risk an ethics violation to lie your way onto a magazine list.

These are the people running the country. Lost souls pouring dollar bills into the bottomless pit within, hoping enough will pile up to make them feel whole.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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