Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said yesterday that he will divest all his remaining equity holdings after the government’s top ethics watchdog said his failure to sell off assets that could pose a conflict of interest “created the potential for a serious criminal violation,” Bloomberg News reported. In his ethics agreement, Ross, a New York businessman, had pledged to divest numerous assets, including all his holdings in Invesco Ltd., within 90 days of his confirmation, and more complex assets within 180 days. But in reports filed in the last month by the Office of Government Ethics, Ross disclosed sales of assets which, the filings said, he had inadvertently failed to sell on time, including at least $20 million worth of Invesco shares. That led the ethics office’s acting director, David Apol, to tell Ross in a letter released yesterday that his failure to sell the assets may have "negatively affected" public trust in the Trump administration.
