Treasury pick defends foreclosures, asset disclosure
WASHINGTON — Steven Mnuchin, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick as Treasury secretary, clashed with Democrats during a lengthy confirmation hearing Thursday over his handling of thousands of mortgage foreclosures and his failure to initially disclose to the committee nearly $100 million in assets and interests in a Cayman Islands corporation.
Mnuchin said the failure to disclose the assets was an oversight that he had corrected when it was brought to his attention by staffers of the Senate Finance Committee. He said he had followed the advice of a lawyer who believed the disclosures were not necessary.
But Democrats seized on the issue as evidence of serious ethics challenges among Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
“Never before has the Senate considered such an ethically challenged slate of nominees for key Cabinet positions,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
In the hearing, Democrats on the Senate panel challenged Mnuchin’s explanations, suggesting it was because he did not want to reveal his involvement in a business that could be used as an offshore tax haven. Mnuchin said he had never used the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes.
After the hearing, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, predicted to reporters that Mnuchin will get confirmed and indicated he hoped to have a committee vote next week. But one Democrat, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, announced that he planned to vote against Mnuchin.
“Mr. Mnuchin’s cozy ties to Wall Street raise serious red flags that demand serious answers,” Brown said in a statement.
Not surprisingly, Mnuchin’s performance drew praise from President-elect Donald Trump. At a luncheon in Washington, Trump said Mnuchin was “getting grilled” by the committee but “he’s doing a fantastic job.”
Mnuchin, one of many wealthy business executives Trump has picked for his Cabinet, told the Senate panel that he had turned over 5,000 pages of documents to the committee and that some of the questions were complicated.