Days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Office of Government Ethics released an agreement with Wilbur Ross, then the nominee to head the Commerce Department, in which the octogenarian tycoon agreed to divest from a significant number of his holdings and step down from the boards of over 20 companies in which he held financial interests. Though Ross’s divestment should be considered the bare minimum for cabinet members, it nevertheless stood in contrast to the incoming president’s refusal to divest from his companies and persistent financial obfuscation. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, told him, “You have really made a very personal sacrifice. Your service has resulted in your divesting yourself of literally hundreds of millions of dollars.”

But Ross made no such sacrifice. Earlier this week, Forbes reported that Ross had maintained multiple investments that constituted significant conflicts of interest, including ownership stakes in several Chinese-owned enterprises, a Cyprian bank being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller, an auto parts company affected by Trump’s changes to trade policy (which Ross, as secretary of Commerce, is overseeing), and a shipping company with substantial ties to Russian oligarchs (who are close to Russian President Vladimir Putin).



The assets that Ross has formally divested, moreover, are being managed by a trust—meaning that Ross did not really divest from them at all, since he still knows which assets will return to his control when he leaves government service. Adding insult to injury, Ross even attempted to profit off his disclosures, shorting stock in the shipping company after being informed that his holdings were about to be made public last fall.



These revelations have resulted in something less than a media firestorm, thanks in large part to the outcry surrounding the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant families at the border. But Ross’s brazen corruption is also part of a larger story. From EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s use of his office for personal gain—to say nothing of his purchasing expensive lotions and “tactical pants”—to the president’s own murky financial assets and connections, corruption is as much the story of the Trump administration as its cruelty toward minorities.



Ross’s ties to Russian oligarchs were first made public last fall, when the Paradise Papers revealed that he owned a stake, via a “chain of offshore investments,” in Navigator Holdings, a shipping company with deep connections to Putin’s inner circle, including some under U.S. sanctions. “I don’t understand why anybody would decide to maintain this kind of relationship going into a senior government position,” Daniel Fried, who served as secretary of state under George W. Bush, told The Guardian. “What is he thinking?” Ross’s press secretary, meanwhile, dismissed the connection, claiming that Ross “recuses himself from any matters focused on transoceanic shipping vessels.”

