Rumsfeld sold up to $91 million in stock

By Matt Kelley

Jun 18, 2002 | Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sold up to $91 million in stock and partnership shares last year to comply with government ethics rules, according to his financial disclosure statement released Tuesday.

Rumsfeld complained in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics that the disclosure form is "excessively complex and confusing" and cost him more than $60,000 in accountants' fees to compile.

Rumsfeld, who also was defense secretary under President Gerald Ford, spent more than 20 years as an executive at several large corporations before returning to government service. Among his largest holdings were stakes in the computer graphics chip maker Nvidia, where he was a business advisor, and Gilead Sciences, a drug company where he was chairman of the board until coming to head the Pentagon.

The defense secretary sold nearly all of his stock and all his shares in 34 limited partnerships that held real estate, stock, corporate bonds or other investments. The total sales were between about $20.5 million and $91.2 million, the disclosure form said.

Federal ethics laws require officials' financial information to be reported in broad ranges, not specific figures.

Rumsfeld said last year he kept out of decisions on weapons systems -- and on health issues such as AIDS -- until his holdings could be sold. He had said selling the shares in limited partnerships was difficult because the market for such investments was narrow and the value was hard to define.

Stock Rumsfeld sold included shares of defense contractors such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman as well as between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of stock in Enron, the bankrupt Houston energy company with ties to the Bush administration.

Rumsfeld's report says he sold his Enron stock on or before April 10, 2001, before Enron's financial troubles made the stock virtually worthless.

The report says Rumsfeld put between $25 million and $50 million into a blind trust. He also bought between $11 million and $55 million in municipal bond and other tax-exempt mutual funds, between $2 million and $10 million in two stock market index funds and 1.5 acres of land in New Mexico for between $100,000 and $250,000.

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