Puzder says he'd quit as CEO if confirmed as labor secretary

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of labor has proposed avoiding conflicts of interest by resigning as CEO of his fast food empire, selling off hundreds of holdings and recusing himself from government decisions in which he has a financial interest, according to his ethics filings with the government.

A spokesperson for Sen. Lamar Alexander, whose committee will handle Puzder's confirmation hearing, confirmed that the panel had received the agreement with the Office of Government Ethics required of all presidential Cabinet nominees.

Like several of the wealthy corporate figures who have joined Trump's Cabinet and agreed to sell off their vast assets to eliminate possible conflicts of interest, Puzder promised in his ethics agreement that he would sell off his CKE Restaurant Holdings partnership stock shares to his company.

[...] the government appears to be allowing Puzder to use an alternate route of insulating himself from his holdings by converting them into "non-conflicting assets" approved by ethics officials, such as government bonds or diversified mutual funds.

Puzder said that some of the underlying assets in those investment funds could not be disclosed because of confidentiality agreements, but he promised to work with government ethics officials "to develop an effective recusal mechanism" for any decisions affecting those corporate entities.