*By Amanda Weston*
Allegations that Wilbur Ross [stole $120 million](https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2018/08/06/new-details-about-wilbur-rosss-businesses-point-to-pattern-of-grifting/) from colleagues may not be enough to force Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, to lose his job, said the Forbes reporter Dan Alexander.
"Ethical issues haven't bounced people quickly in the past, and I think that Wilbur Ross really likes being in the cabinet," Alexander said Wednesday in an interview on Cheddar. "I don't see him as somebody who's likely to step down because of embarrassment or anything like that. So we'll sort of see how it plays out."
Alexander's article, published Tuesday by Forbes, includes accusations made by Ross's colleagues at WL Ross & Co., including one who describe him as "a pathological liar." Alexander wrote that if half of the allegations are true, Ross could be one of the biggest grifters in U.S. history. (More than 280,000 people have read the Forbes article on its website.)
"This is the former No. 2 person in Wilbur Ross's firm saying that he stole about $4 million from him, another high-ranking employee saying that he stole $3.6 million, and then a lot of it is more complex, siphoning funds from investors or from other partners," said Alexander. "Total it all up and you get to over $120 million. That's a tremendous amount of money for anyone, but particularly for somebody like Wilbur Ross who said he was a billionaire ー and is not."
A Commerce Department spokesperson said in [a statement to Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/wilbur-ross-120-million-grift-allegations-in-bombshell-forbes-report-2018-8) that the accusations against Ross are,"based on false rumors, innuendo, and unverifiable claims."
Alexander relied on information from more than 20 people who know Ross, and details from four lawsuits, including one by David Storper, who worked under Ross for more than a decade. Had senators known about the allegations against Ross, Alexander said his confirmation hearing for Commerce Secretary may have gone differently.
As a member of the president's cabinet, Ross has to file financial disclosure forms detailing what he owns. Alexander said that past disclosures were "embarrassing" because they showed how Ross made misleading statements about his wealth.
When asked whether any of his sources had no complaints to issue about Ross, Alexander had a simple response.
"There was nobody who was willing to go on the record saying Wilbur Ross is a tremendous guy."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-accused-of-stealing-millions).
Russian forces escalated their attacks on populated urban areas Tuesday, bombarding the central square in Ukraine’s second-largest city and Kyiv’s main TV tower.
A bipartisan group of 43 representatives joined forces in a letter to President Joe Biden to remind the executive branch that it must seek the approval of Congress before authorizing a war — whether or not its in Ukraine as Russia continues its invasion. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore. 4th District) led the effort and joined Cheddar News Wrap to explain. "It's time for Congress to get back the authority, which is vested to us in the constitution, not in the executive branch," he said. "The president. once we're at war, we speak with one voice with the commander in chief. But before that, it's up to the American people and Congress whether or not we're going to become engaged in a war."
Chris Konstantinos, Chief Investment Strategist at RiverFront Investment Group, explains why he remains encouraged about the S&P and the state of the market despite the major indexes closing mostly lower on Monday.
President Joe Biden will be delivering his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and with so many issues from Ukraine to inflation, everyone will be focused on what he might say. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y. 11th District) joined Cheddar News to discuss what she thinks the president should address. "I think what he hasn't done yet is go after the gas, the oil, the minerals, the mining industries, that is incredibly important," she said. "There's still some banks there that are not sanctioned. He needs to go after all the banks, but I also think that providing the equipment that Ukraine needs to continue to protect its capital and its country are incredibly important."
As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, one of its few big allies remaining appears to be China. Gordon Chang, Asian affairs expert and author of "The Coming Collapse of China," joined Cheddar News to discuss what might be behind China's support for Putin's current strategy. “I think China is looking at what Putin did yesterday, which is to raise his nuclear forces on a higher alert level,” Chang stated, “If they see that Putin gets away with his nuclear threats, which he's been making over the last three or four days, then I'm sure that Beijing is going to ramp up its threats as well, and it could ramp them up against any number of different countries with which it perceives it has a problem with"
Joel Rubin, president of the Washington Strategy Group and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, joins Cheddar News to discuss the Russia-Ukraine tensions and the new sanctions President Biden placed on Russia.
