Lawmakers in the House and the Senate asked a government watchdog to determine if Howard Lutnick is following ethics guidelines in promoting data centers that benefit his family’s businesses.
Democratic lawmakers have asked the Commerce Department’s inspector general to review whether Secretary Howard Lutnick improperly promoted artificial intelligence data center projects that could enrich his family members.
The 25 lawmakers in the Senate and the House asked the acting inspector general, Duane Townsend, to examine issues raised last month in a New York Times investigation about the intersection between Mr. Lutnick’s actions as commerce secretary and the work of his former companies.
Mr. Lutnick handed off his role in the network of companies, under the umbrella of Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., to his two oldest sons, who now hold a controlling ownership stake along with their two younger siblings.
In their letter, sent on Thursday, the group of lawmakers led by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania noted that the immense energy demands of data centers for artificial intelligence were driving up utility bills for other businesses and households across the country.
“There is a substantial public interest in ensuring that Secretary Lutnick, a billionaire, is not violating federal ethics law to propel data centers that will be profitable for his family while making life more expensive for working Americans,” the lawmakers wrote.
A representative for the Commerce Department referred to previous statements by the agency and the White House that Mr. Lutnick had adhered to all his ethics requirements and did not have a conflict of interest. “The only special interest guiding Secretary Lutnick and the rest of the Trump administration’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said last month.
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