D21 files Justice Department complaint requesting investigation of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
In a complaint filed today with the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Democracy 21 called on Public Integrity to investigate whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “has committed criminal violations of 18 U.S.C. § 208 and/or 18 U.S.C. § 1001.”
“According to published reports, Wilbur Ross had a long history of highly suspicious business practices before he joined the Trump Administration as Secretary of Commerce,” according to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer.
“With this background, the apparent false statements that Ross made on his ethics filings require the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section to investigate whether he has broken the law, and to take appropriate action against Ross if he has,” Wertheimer said.
According to the complaint:
On November 1, 2017, Secretary Ross filed with OGE a “Certification of Ethics Agreement Compliance,” which supplemented earlier such Certifications he had filed on June 5, 2017 and September 5, 2017.
In this Certification, a copy of which is attached, Secretary Ross stated, inter alia, that he had “completed all of the divestitures indicated in my ethics agreement.” Certification at 1. The Certification form signed by Secretary Ross states, “Any intentional false or misleading statement or response provided in this certification is a violation of law punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001.”
The complaint also notes that Acting Director of the Office of Government Ethics David J. Apol informed Secretary Ross that this Certification was false. Apol wrote (emphasis added):
As you know, various financial disclosure forms and compliance documents that you have submitted to OGE in the past year have contained various omissions and inaccurate statements. For example, you represented in your Certificate of Ethics Agreement Compliance, signed November 1, 2017, that you had completed divestitures indicated in your Ethics Agreement, dated January 15, 2017. However, you later submitted a transaction report on December 21, 2017 that included two sales of Invesco Ltd stock which took place on December 19 and 20, 2017, well after the date of your compliance document and the date by which you agreed to divest this asset. You also opened new short positions on various holdings that you committed to divesting in your Ethics Agreement, in contravention of that agreement. Our understanding is that you neglected to seek advice from the Designated Agency Ethics Official (DAEO) of your Department or other ethics staff prior to opening these short positions, which appear to have been an ineffective attempt to remedy your actual or apparent failure to timely divest assets per your Ethics Agreement.
Democracy 21’s complaint notes that according to Acting OGE Director Apol, Secretary Ross “apparently made two false certifications in his November 1, 2017 Certificate of Ethics Agreement Compliance,” in which he claimed to have divested certain financial holdings.
According to Democracy 21’s complaint:
Secretary Ross has informed Acting Director Apol that these false certifications were “inadvertent,” Letter at 2, and OGE has apparently decided not to look behind this representation. But this is a serious matter which, on its face, raises the issue of whether Secretary Ross violated section 1001 of the criminal code by submitting a false certification to OGE, i.e., by “knowingly and willfully” making a “materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement” within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of Government.
There is no basis on which to accept at face value Secretary Ross’s self-serving claim that his false certifications were “inadvertent.” Material misrepresentations made by a high-level government official on a formal certification subject to the strictures of section 1001 cannot be swept under the rug by a simple claim that the misrepresentations were unintended. If the obligation to tell the truth to the government were so easily dispensed with, there would be little meaning left to section 1001. The Justice Department should investigate whether the misrepresentations made by Secretary Ross were in fact knowing and willful, in violation of section 1001.
As Acting Director Apol’s letter notes, “The American public needs to have confidence that Government officials take their ethical commitments seriously, and exercise the required care to ensure complete compliance with those commitments.”
According to the complaint sent to the Public Integrity section of the DOJ, “that confidence requires a thorough investigation by the Justice Department to enforce the applicable criminal provisions of law, if warranted.”
Democracy 21’s complaint concluded by calling on the Public Integrity section “to investigate whether Secretary Ross has committed criminal violations of 18 U.S.C. § 208 and/or 18 U.S.C. § 1001.”
Read the full complaint here.
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Released: August 10, 2018
