Mnuchin Sears recusal sought

Three Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee are demanding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin formally recuse himself from any matters before the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. related to Sears Holding Co., where he was once a board member.

Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ron Wyden (DOre.), the ranking Democrat on the panel, made the demand in a letter to Mnuchin on Friday. Mnuchin (right) sits on the board of the federal PBGC, which considers applications from companies to terminate their pension plans, and it pays retirees, at least in part, if the employer defaults. The agency is listed among the biggest unsecured creditors of Sears, which declared bankruptcy earlier this week.

Mnuchin promised in his confirmation hearing to recuse himself from any Sears matter that came before the pension board. “We are concerned that anything short of full recusal will present a significant conflict of interest and risk bias in any PBGC decisions and actions,” they wrote. Officials at the Trea- sury department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mnuchin was a member of Sears’s board from 2005 until December 2016, and before that was a director for Kmart, which merged with Sears in 2005. The senators asked Mnuchin to confirm he had divested previously disclosed stakes in Sears stock, interests in Seritage Growth Properties, which leases stores to Sears, and ESL Investments, the hedge fund run by Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert.