Todd Ricketts has withdrawn his nomination to be deputy commerce secretary,
the
Wall Street Journal
reported.
President Trump had nominated Ricketts for the post late last year.
Ricketts' family owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team. His father, Joe Ricketts, had been a major donor to Trump's presidential campaign, the article said.
Todd Ricketts “had been prepared to divest himself of his own financial portfolio,” the
Journal
article said. But the Office of Government Ethics told him that the whole Ricketts family would have to divest in order for him to fully comply with ethics rules, the report said.
A spokesman for Ricketts told the
Journal
that he wouldn't be able to serve because “the scope of issues that face the Department of Commerce is very broad and these issues potentially could touch many of Mr. Ricketts's family's current financial interests.” (Source:
Wall Street Journal
, April 20, 2017.)
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