McCain’s Wife Sells Sudan-Related Investments

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s wife, Cindy, has sold more than $2 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that do business in Sudan, McCain’s campaign said on Wednesday.

John McCain has been a strong advocate for imposing international financial sanctions on Sudan because of the 5-year-old Darfur conflict, in which U.N. officials estimate that as many as 300,000 people may have been killed.

McCain’s campaign said Cindy McCain had been unaware that Hensley and Co., the beer distributorship that she chairs, had investments in a mutual fund whose holdings included companies that do business in Sudan.

“When she was made aware, she sold it,” said McCain campaign communications director Jill Hazelbaker.

Cindy McCain, married to McCain since 1980, has come under criticism from Democrats and some news organizations for refusing to release her tax records.

She inherited a multimillion-dollar Anheuser-Busch distributorships, one of the country’s largest, from her father. John McCain released tax records for 2006 and 2007 last month.

“The candidate should get his wife to reconsider,” The Washington Post wrote in an editorial published on Wednesday. “The last thing the country needs in a new president is more secrecy.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland, editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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