U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent to Divest Remaining Assets by Year-End After Ethics Office Cites Delays

WASHINGTON – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday he is working to sell his remaining illiquid personal assets, including farmland, by the end of the year, after the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) stated he had failed to meet key deadlines in his ethics agreement.

In a formal letter sent Monday to Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, the OGE noted that Bessent “has failed to timely comply with certain terms of the ethics agreement he signed” before taking office in late January. The ethics office said it had instructed Treasury officials to remind the Secretary of his “personal responsibility to avoid taking any action that could create a real or apparent conflict of interest with regard to his holdings.”

Bessent, a central figure in President Donald Trump’s economic team, had pledged in his January ethics agreement to divest from his Key Square Group hedge fund and other assets to avoid conflicts of interest. The deadline for many of these divestitures was April 28.

In a statement issued by the Treasury Department, Bessent acknowledged the delay but noted that he had already completed the vast majority of the required sales. “I have completed all but 4% of the asset divestitures required by my ethics agreement,” Bessent said. “Much of (that) is farmland, an inherently highly illiquid asset.”

He added, “As agreed upon with OGE, I am working towards selling the rest of my required divestitures before the end of this year.”

A Treasury spokesperson clarified that most of the required sales, valued at approximately $1 billion, were completed before President Trump’s inauguration.

In a subsequent letter on Wednesday, the OGE confirmed that Treasury ethics officials had committed to a new deadline of December 15 for Bessent to complete the divestitures, which include farmland in North Dakota. The OGE acknowledged the explanation that the assets were not readily marketable and that some carry restrictions on potential buyers.

Until the sales are complete, Bessent will continue to recuse himself from any government matters that could affect his remaining assets. The Treasury’s ethics office has also implemented screening procedures to identify and redirect any “potentially conflicting matters that would be seen by the Secretary.”