{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/in-the-news/-democrats-are-already-building-a-case-against-trumps-pick-to-lead-treasury-department", "Democrats are already building a case against Trump’s pick to lead Treasury Department", "2016-12-30", "2016", "2016-12", "Democrat", "House", "OR", "Jeff Merkley", "M001176", "www.merkley.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Democrats are already building a case against Trump\u2019s pick to lead Treasury Department \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFriday, December 30, 2016\r\n\r\n\t\n\r\n\r\n\r\n  \r\n    By:\u00a0\r\n    Ylan Q. Mui \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nPresident-elect Donald Trump\u2019s pick to lead the Treasury Department is likely to face a contentious confirmation battle centered on his purchase of a failed subprime mortgage lender that repeatedly has been accused of wrongful foreclosures.\r\nThe formal vetting process for Steven T. Mnuchin, who served as Trump\u2019s campaign finance chairman and worked at investment bank Goldman Sachs for nearly two decades, has not yet begun. A staffer at the Senate Finance Committee, which is handling the nomination, said it is waiting for his paperwork to be completed before starting the process. In the meantime, Democrats have already begun preparing a line of attack that accuses Mnuchin of preying on the middle-class workers that helped sweep Trump into the White House.\r\nAdam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said political action committee\u00a0plans to use paid advertisements and local organizing to pressure Republican lawmakers from states that suffered widespread foreclosures to oppose Mnuchin\u2019s confirmation. The AFL-CIO issued a\u00a0statementthis month slamming Mnuchin for profiting from the worst financial crisis in generations. And Senate Democrats \u2014 led by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren \u2014 set up a website calling him the \u201cForeclosure King\u201d and soliciting complaints from his bank\u2019s customers.\r\n\u00a0\u201cTrump\u2019s cabinet hearings are right around the corner in January and you better believe that by the time they're over, the American people will know that the Trump Administration is all about special interests and the super-rich at the expense of working people,\u201d Merkley posted on Facebook recently.\r\nMnuchin led a consortium of investors that purchased the troubled bank IndyMac from the federal government in 2009, acquiring a $13.9 billion portfolio of some of the nation\u2019s shoddiest loans for about $1.6 billion. Tara Bradshaw, a spokeswoman for Mnuchin, said about 178,000 loans were already in the foreclosure process when he took over the bank and renamed it OneWest. Bradshaw said he oversaw 101,000 mortgage modification offers, some of which forgave part of borrowers' principal balance.\u00a0Mnuchin sold OneWest to CIT Group in 2015 for more than double what he paid for it.\r\n\u201cSteven is proud of his record at OneWest. He was able to save three institutions that were in receivership, did tens of thousands of loan modifications, saving homes and jobs, and developed OneWest Bank into a regional banking franchise that in turn made loans to consumers and businesses that helped create jobs,\u201d Bradshaw said.\r\nTo avoid potential conflicts of interest, Mnuchin stepped down this month from his position on the board of directors of CIT as well as the board of Sears Holding. According to compensation research firm Equilar, Mnuchin owned about $100 million in CIT stock as of last month.\u00a0Bradshaw said he is also\u00a0working with attorneys to resolve\u00a0other outstanding conflicts. Government ethics experts said Mnuchin will likely have to divest at least some of his financial holdings.\r\nAfter Mnuchin visited Capitol Hill earlier this month, top Republicans on the finance committee praised his selection.\r\n\u201cThrough his private sector background, Steven will have to untangle the web of red tape found in our mammoth tax code and navigate a minefield of heavy-handed regulations that have stifled opportunity and growth,\u201d said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the finance committee.\r\nThe finance committee has received three years of Mnuchin\u2019s tax returns and responses to a questionnaire but are awaiting his final financial disclosures and ethics forms, which must be reviewed by the White House Office of Government Ethics before they are sent to the committee. A Senate aide said that Mnuchin\u2019s vast private holdings could take more than a week to review, pushing back the scheduling of a confirmation hearing. Beyond the purchase of IndyMac, Mnuchin was an active private equity investor with stakes in retail companies and Hollywood film studios.\r\nOnly 51 votes are required in the Senate to confirm Trump\u2019s Cabinet nominees, after new rules passed by Democrats three years ago eliminated the need for a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes. But Republicans have little margin for error, holding a narrow edge of 52 seats. A handful of defections could sink Trump\u2019s picks.\r\n\u201cThis is not a united Republican party,\u201d said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a liberal watchdog group that scrutinizes\u00a0executive-branch appointments.\r\nAmong the lawmakers Democrats hope to sway is Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, who is facing reelection in 2018 and has been mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate. Nevada was one of the hardest-hit states during the housing bust, and it still ranks third in the country in amount of foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac. Heller vocally opposed Trump during the election, even broaching the possibility that he would not vote for either major party candidate.\r\nMnuchin is not the only Cabinet nominee who could be in for a rocky confirmation hearing. Democrats have also sharply criticized\u00a0Trump\u2019s choice for secretary of state, ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, and his pick to lead the Commerce Department, billionaire industrialist Wilbur Ross, among others.\r\nBut Green said that Mnuchin\u2019s nomination deserves particular scrutiny because he would lead the agency responsible for carrying out the economic agenda that was central to Trump\u2019s victory.\r\n\u201cMnuchin is the poster child for Trump betraying his own voters by turning our economy over to Wall Street and giant corporations at the expense of American working families,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n \r\n           \r\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tPrint\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tEmail\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t  \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tTweet", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/in-the-news/-democrats-are-already-building-a-case-against-trumps-pick-to-lead-treasury-department"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 4.483809228986502, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}