Tommy Thompson’s Iran investments

Well isn’t this inconvenient…

Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson (R) acknowledged during a debate on Thursday that he recently sold stock in a company that did business with Iran, only after news reports highlighted his interests in the companies. The admission came as the former governor accused challenger Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) of being soft on the regime and voting against sanctions.

“I was so disturbed after having heard some of your rhetoric around my position on Iran to have read a report just hours before taking this stage that you have tens of thousands of dollars in investments in companies that do business with Iran, including a company that teams up with Iran doing Uranium mining in Africa,” Baldwin said in reaction to Thompson’s attacks. “I find that shocking. And, if you want to be tough on Iran, we have to isolate Iran. We have to make sure that companies don’t do business, to make sure that they are isolated in the world stage.”

According to Thompson’s personal financial disclosures, he owns up $50,000 worth of stock in multiple firms that are owned by China and Russia and do business in Iran. What’s more, according to a report by the Huffington Post’s Michael McAuliff, Tommy Thompson has up to $1,000 invested in the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation, all of which were cited in a recent Government Accountability Office study as having done business with Iran. According to McAuliff’s report, Thompson also owns up to $17,000 worth of stock in oil company Royal Dutch Shell, which the GAO also named as having done business with Iran.

And for all you national security buffs out there, Thompson also apparently owns between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of stock in the mining operation Rio Tinto, which has partnered with Iran in mining uranium.