Department of Commerce
See also Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.
Timeline
| 2016.11.16 | Trump campaigned as a champion of coal miners but is close to choosing Wilbur Ross, who owned a West Virginia mine where 12 coal miners died on in 2006, to be his Commerce Secretary. thenation.com (See also Wilbur Ross, Conflicts of Interest) |
| 2016.11.24 | Elevating Wilbur Ross, who helped helped shape the Trump campaign’s economic agenda, particularly its hard-line stance on the need to renegotiate — or even withdraw from — free trade agreements to a position in his Cabinet could suggest that Trump intends to nurture the nationalist streak that was one of the hallmarks of his campaign. washingtonpost.com (See also Wilbur Ross) |
| 2016.11.29 | What you need to know about Commerce Secretary pick Wilbur Ross, Trump's billionaire pal and major supporter. forbes.com (See also Wilbur Ross, Conflicts of Interest) |
| 2016.12.16 | Wilbur Ross has made a fortune in steel — and soon after the inauguration, the Commerce Department will make five decisions about steel trade that will affect his firms. propublica.org (See also Wilbur Ross, Conflicts of Interest) |
| 2016.12.21 | Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, intends to step down as Bank of Cyprus vice chairman to work for Trump, but the private equity firm that bears his name isn’t planning to sell it. bloomberg.com (See also Wilbur Ross, Conflicts of Interest) |
| 2017.01.10 | Commerce Secretary confirmation hearing on Trump nominee Wilbur Ross delayed to give him more time to complete the required ethics paperwork wsj.com (See also Wilbur Ross) |
| 2017.01.10 | Wilbur Ross is no stranger to trade protectionism, having taken a hands-on approach to safeguard tariffs that would help his investments in two North Carolina textile mills. mobile.reuters.com (See also Wilbur Ross) |
| 2017.01.12 | Op-Ed: Five tough questions for Trump’s commerce pick, Wilbur Ross. newsweek.com (See also Wilbur Ross) |
| 2017.01.13 | Trump's pick for Secretary of Commerce will need to divest from a complex range of business ties if confirmed. wsj.com (See also Wilbur Ross) |
| 2017.01.18 | Donald Trump's nominee for commerce secretary admitted at his confirmation hearing that he had employed an undocumented household worker for seven years. buzzfeed.com (See also Wilbur Ross) |
| 2017.06.15 | The Trump Administration's Department of Commerce has outraged LGBT groups by removing sexual orientation and gender identity from the list of categories explicitly protected from discrimination in its latest equal employment opportunity statement. buzzfeed.com (See also LGBTQIA, Wilbur Ross) |
| 2017.11.07 | For 13 years, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has been telling Forbes and everyone else that he's a billionaire, but he has been lying about a missing $2 billion. forbes.com (See also False Statements, Wilbur Ross) |
| 2017.11.08 | An investigation reveals Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has financial ties to 36 previously undisclosed ships that are spread among at least nine companies, along with the Russia-tied company — Navigator Holdings Ltd. — Ross has a financial interest in at least 75 ships, most of which move oil and gas products across the globe. apmreports.org (See also Wilbur Ross, Conflicts of Interest, Corruption, Russia) The value of those ships stands to grow as Ross negotiates trade deals on behalf of the U.S. and advises on U.S. infrastructure policy, and one fund linked to Ross was still buying and selling ships after Ross was confirmed as Commerce secretary. |
| 2017.11.15 | A trio of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s ex-longtime colleagues at his private equity shop, WL Ross & Co., have sued the secretary and the firm for allegedly charging at least $48 million in improper management fees and pocketing the money. vanityfair.com (See also Corruption, Wilbur Ross, Legal Issues) |
| 2017.12.12 | Following reports that Wilbur Ross vastly overvalued his wealth and failed to disclose his holdings in a Russian shipping company partly owned by Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law, whose long relationship with Donald Trump has been tested by the disclosures, is facing scrutiny by European lawmakers over allegations that he engaged in insider trading related to his 2014 sale of shares in the Bank of Ireland. motherjones.com (See also Wilbur Ross, False Statements, Conflicts of Interest, Corruption, Criminality) |
| 2018.03.26 | The 2020 census will ask respondents whether they are United States citizens, the Commerce Department announced Monday night, agreeing to a Trump administration request with highly charged political and social implications that many officials feared would result in a substantial undercount. nytimes.com (See also Wilbur Ross, Immigration) Critics of the change and experts in the Census Bureau itself have said that the inclusion of a citizenship question could prompt immigrants who are in the country illegally not to respond. resulting in a severe undercount of the population — and, in turn, faulty data for government agencies and outside groups that rely on the census, also bleeding into the redistricting of the House and state legislatures in the next decade. |
| 2018.04.03 | A group of 17 U.S. states and 6 cities sued the Trump administration to stop it from asking people filling out 2020 census forms whether they are citizens. reuters.com (See also Immigration, Wilbur Ross, Immigrants, Nationalism) |
| 2018.06.18 | The Senate voted to reinstate tough penalties on ZTE, a Chinese telecom company accused of violating American sanctions, in a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s handling of the matter that almost ensures a rare showdown between Republican lawmakers and the White House. nytimes.com (See also China, Reversals, Conflicts of Interest) |
| 2018.06.18 | Wilbur Ross lied when he confirmed in writing to the federal Office of Government Ethics that he had divested his multiple portfolios, revealing dozens of conflicts of interest. forbes.com (See also Wilbur Ross, Conflicts of Interest, Corruption, Russia) |
| 2018.07.05 | 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. publicintegrity.org (See also Wilbur Ross, Corruption) |
| 2018.07.19 | The Trump administration unveiled a proposal that would strip the Endangered Species Act of key provisions, a move that conservationists say would weaken a law enacted 45 years ago to keep plant and animal species in decline from going extinct. washingtonpost.com (See also Department of the Interior, Environment) |
| 2018.07.22 | The Endangered Species Act, which for 45 years has safeguarded fragile wildlife while blocking ranching, logging and oil drilling on protected habitats, is coming under attack from lawmakers, the White House and industry on a scale not seen in decades. nytimes.com (See also Environment, Department of the Interior) |
| 2018.07.24 | A cache of documents released by the Commerce Department provides further evidence that Secretary Wilbur Ross was pushing to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census far more actively, and much earlier, than his later sworn testimony indicated. washingtonpost.com (See also False Statements, Wilbur Ross, Immigration, Voter Suppression) |
| 2018.08.07 | People who work with Wilbur Ross claim that he has wrongly siphoned or outright stolen millions of dollars - more than $120 million - ranking him among the biggest grifters in American history. forbes.com (See also Wilbur Ross, Criminality) |
| 2018.09.18 | Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Congress earlier this year that he added a citizenship question to the 2020 census to help the Department of Justice enforce the Voting Rights Act, but contradicting that sworn testimony, new evidence shows that Ross received a memo several months earlier informing him that the Justice Department wanted to avoid monkeying around with the census because of “the whole Comey matter.” courthousenews.com (See also False Statements, Wilbur Ross, Corruption, Voter Suppression) |
| 2018.10.11 | The Department of Justice said in a new court filing that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross talked with Stephen Bannon, then President Trump’s chief White House strategist, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions about adding the citizenship question to the 2020 census, which is contrary to what he testified to Congress. thehill.com (See also False Statements, Voter Suppression, Wilbur Ross, Department of Justice, Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon) |
| 2018.10.22 | The Supreme Court shielded Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from answering lawyers’ questions in a lawsuit challenging his decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census form. washingtonpost.com (See also Wilbur Ross, Supreme Court, Legal Issues, Voter Suppression) The government had asked the Supreme Court to block questioning of Ross as part of a lawsuit filed by several states, including New York, and civil rights groups. The groups are seeking to stop the administration from adding a citizenship question to the decennial count. |