BETSY DEVOS' FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE FAILS TO ACCOUNT FOR DIVESTITURE OF 24 ASSETS
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ Annual 2018 financial disclosure report, obtained by CREW last week, has not been certified by the Office of Government Ethics more than six months after it was filed and fails to document how or when she divested from twenty-four assets included in her ethics agreement.
Periodic transaction reports (PTRs)—which disclose purchases, sales, or exchanges over $1,000 made by the filer, their spouse, or dependent child—also show that the Secretary increased her controversial interest in Neurocore in 2017. This activity all points to lingering concerns about Secretary DeVos’ vast financial interests and highlights a weakness in financial disclosure laws that makes it difficult to assess whether officials are living up to their ethical requirements.
The issues with Secretary DeVos’ financial disclosure report begin on its first page. Signalling that there may yet be problems with it, the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has still not certified the report more than six months after it was filed and after it was amended twelve times in a two-month span. While we do not know what has prevented OGE from certifying the report, it is clear that there are problems with it beyond its lack of certification.
Though not required by her ethics agreement, Secretary DeVos failed to sell her controversial interest in Neurocore, a company that works with children and adults on brain diagnostics and treatment that CREW has previously discussed in a 2017 report. In fact, Secretary DeVos increased her interest in the company in 2017. PTRs show that Secretary DeVos made three purchases of Neurocore stock in 2017: one for between $1,000,001-$5,000,000 on 4/07/2017, another for between $250,001-$500,000 on 6/13/2017, and the third for between $1,000,001-$5,000,000 on 7/06/2017.
Her financial disclosure report shows that she holds between $5,000,001 and $25,000,000 of stock in the company. According to a New York Times article, an advertising-industry review board found in June 2018 that some of Neurocore’s claims “were based on mixed research and unscientific internal studies.” As a result, Neurocore agreed that it would no longer advertise success rates associated with its programs.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/betsy-devos-pfd/
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