Actually, Wilbur Ross did nothing wrong

Wilbur Ross is being treated unfairly.

He’s being accused of unjustly making money when he sold investments to take up his post as commerce secretary. Citizens for Ethics has gone through Ross’s financial declarations and found $53 million of “side income,” in their words, “while he was at Commerce.”

The group goes on, describing how in “an administration characterized by corruption,” “Ross became notorious.”

Unfortunately, the Citizens for Ethics does not appear to understand how calendars work. It tells us that Ross “made a large portion of his income from his time in office, at least $42 million, in 2017.” 2017 is also the year in which Ross took office, a fairly important thing to note.

We would rightly prefer that commerce secretaries and politicians, in general, didn’t use their offices to enrich themselves. To this end, we ask that any of their investments and assets that might be influenced by their policymaking in the job be sold. This is to remove the temptation of using office for profit. That’s what Ross did. He sold the investments that might be affected by decisions he made as commerce secretary. This is the $42 million that Citizens for Ethics is complaining about.

There is a most dangerous idea being promulgated here. The notion is that rich people always will have investments that cause such conflicts, therefore, rich people, perhaps especially the self-made rich, should not be elected or appointed to high office. Or if they are, that these rich people should be forced to become non-rich, first.

Operative point: Ross appears to have done nothing wrong.