In digging into the public financial disclosures of top U.S. Department of Transportation officials I suspected of collaborating with former Congressman Bud Shuster in what Senator Orrin Hatch has characterized as a federally subsidized monopoly for a company called Traffic.com, I stumbled upon former Transportation Secretary Mineta's failure to disclose the details of his capital gains income of up to $1 million in Trimble Navigation stock options back in 2000.

Mr. Mineta was Commerce Secretary in the Clinton Administration in the second half of 2000, and in January 2001 became Transportation Secretary in the Bush Administration. Sitting Cabinet Secretaries (and many other federal elected and appointed officials) are required by federal law (the Ethics in Government Act) to file annual Public Financial Disclosure reports with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and to disclose details of their income, assets, and equity transactions while in government service.

According to the OGE's website seen here,

http://www.usoge.gov/pages/financial_disclosure/sf_278_faqs_pg2.html#278Q1

the purpose of this disclosure is "to assist employees and their agencies in avoiding conflicts between duties and private financial interests or affiliations."

On his calendar year 2000 disclosure, Mr. Mineta indicated a capital gains income of $100,001 - $1,000,000 in Trimble Navigation stock options, yet he marked "none" in the section of the disclosure where he was required to provide more details (number of equities sold, selling price, etc.) of his transactions. In other words, he said in a sworn statement that he had absolutely no reportable equity transactions in 2000, yet he reported an income of up to $1,000,000 in stock options.

A detailed analysis of the facts underlying this scenario indicates the possibility that Mr. Mineta actually received many more stock options from the company than he should have received by the company's own published policy for compensating directors. (Mr. Mineta served on the Board of Directors of Trimble Navigation for just 13 months, and resigned shortly after becoming Commerce Secretary.) Further, comprehensive Google searches seem to show that Mr. Mineta supported policies and initiatives while both Commerce and later Transportation Secretary that clearly benefited the so-called location technology market, for which Trimble Navigation has been a long-time technology and market leader.

If it can be shown that Mr. Mineta indeed received many more stock options than was company policy, failed to report the true size of his stock options sale, and then pushed national policies while a Cabinet member to benefit the company, then it's possible he could be found in violation of the Ethics in Government Act.

This Act clearly has teeth, too, if those who are responsible for ensuring ethics and honesty in our federal government will enforce it. Just ask Ronald Blackley, former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy's Chief of Staff, who in 1999 was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for "failing to disclose $22,000 from Mississippi agribusiness interests on his 1993 public financial disclosure report," according to an Associated Press report at the time.

I've put together four white papers that provide a detailed analysis of this matter, which I have provided to the authorities, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice. These white papers are all available online at: http://www.itsonline.com/ethics/

Because this matter is quite complex, I encourage anyone who is interested in knowing more to review these documents in the following order:

• 1. Significance of Mr. Mineta's Financial Disclosures in 1999-2002.

• 2. Further Insight from Mr. Mineta's Commerce 'New Entrant' Financial Disclosure in 2000.

• 3. The U.S. Office Of Government Ethics' Seeming Effort to Lose Former USDOT Secretary Mineta'a Calendar Year 2000 Public Financial Disclosure Report

• 4. Mr. Mineta's Support for GPS and Location Technology as Secretary of Commerce/Transportation

I hope you will find this information as eye opening as I did when I first discovered it.

How to Access Mr. Mineta's Financial Disclosures

The financial disclosures mentioned in the above analysis are all available online from the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics, which received them directly from the OGE. To access those reports, click on this link:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/candlook.php? txtName=Mineta

After putting in the code and clicking the "Submit" button (if required), you will see a page containing links to Mr. Mineta's various disclosures. It's hard to tell from the information on that page which link takes you to exactly which report, so here's more information about how to access the various disclosures:

• 1. The Commerce New Entrant disclosure can be accessed through the bottom link (called "2000").

• 2. The Transportation New Entrant disclosure can be accessed through the third from the bottom link (called "2000").

• 3. Mr. Mineta's Calendar Year 2000 disclosure can be accessed through the second from the bottom link (called "2000 Amendment")

For more information about the ongoing federal program that created what Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Cong. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) contend is a federally subsidized monopoly for a single company, Traffic.com, see http://www.itsonline.com/ttid/ttid_whitepaper.pdf

Additional information about both of these issues is also available on the author's "Buda Rabblerouser" blog at http://budarabble.blogspot.com

Jerry Werner has consulted in the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) field since 1991. From 1998 through 2005 he was a subcontractor to the USDOT and Editorial Director of the National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC). Reach him at mailto:jerrycw@attglobal.net

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