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What You Need to Know About Wilbur Ross’ Many Conflicts — “Trump, Inc.” Podcast

We spoke with Forbes’ Dan Alexander about Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Wilbur Ross, U.S. commerce secretary (T.J. Kirkpatrick/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

There’s a chance you missed it amid the other news, but Forbes had a blockbuster story about Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. It turns out, Ross bet against the stock of a company after journalists had contacted him with questions about his connections to the firm. Using inside information in stock trades is illegal. Ross has denied he profited from the bet against the stock.

And that’s only one of the revelations from Forbes’ story. “Trump, Inc.” spoke to reporter Dan Alexander about what else he found. Ross transferred many of his assets to a family trust last fall. Among those assets: an auto parts firm owned jointly with a Chinese-government-owned entity, and a stake in a shipping company also owned in part by Russian oligarchs.

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There is no evidence Ross made any policy decisions based on his financial interests. “But the problem is that you have to wonder,” says Alexander. “And usually we don’t allow people to hold interests in which the public is left wondering.”

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