John McCain has been critical of China for its willingness to do business in Sudan. “China needs Sudan’s oil,” he has said. “The politics of oil impede the global progress of our values, and restrains governments from acting on the most basic impulses of human decency.”
Turns out it’s not just China that ignores Sudan’s humanitarian atrocities in order to make a profit.
Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation.
The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership.
Last year, at least four presidential candidates divested themselves of Sudan-related holdings.
According to McCain’s personal financial disclosure, Cindy McCain’s investments include two mutual funds — American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income fund — that are listed by the Sudan Divestment Task Force as targets for divestment.
“Those have been sold as of today,” said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.
The AP adds, “Cindy McCain is heiress to a Phoenix-based beer distributing company whose fortune is in the $100 million range.” Who knows what other investments are in that $100 million? Are there connections between her money and John McCain’s actions as a Senator? Between her investments and his political positions?
The answer may well be no. But the only way to find out for sure is for Cindy McCain to release her tax returns, which every president and first lady have done in recent memory. Most presidential candidates and their wives do it well before they take the White House. Cindy McCain has flatly refused to ever release her tax returns, a position that grows increasingly untenable with today’s news.
