Billionaire Passes on Commerce Post

The hotel heiress Barack Obama was seriously considering as commerce secretary has taken herself out of the running, the Chicago Tribune reports. Penny Pritzker—whose family empire includes Hyatt hotels, casinos, and banks—led Obama's record-breaking fundraising effort, but the vetting process bogged down for “business reasons,” an insider told the Washington Post.

The 49-year-old Chicago billionaire put it bluntly: "Speculation has grown that I am a candidate for Secretary of Commerce. I am not," a statement released today begins. An anonymous Obama rep told the Tribune: "Penny Pritzker ultimately has decided she does not want to do the Commerce thing."
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