Joe Biden’s nominee to lead a top US bank regulator was at risk of being rejected by the Senate after facing a wave of attacks from Republicans and scepticism from some Democrats during a hearing on Thursday.
Saule Omarova was chosen by the president to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which supervises national banks including Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
She has been one of Biden’s most contentious economic and financial appointments because of her harsh criticism of Wall Street as well as her upbringing in the Soviet Union, having been born in what is now known as Kazakhstan.
Biden has pressed ahead with Omarova’s nomination despite the mounting opposition in recent weeks, but her confirmation seemed in jeopardy as she testified before the Senate banking committee on Thursday.
The most intense and personal grilling came from Republican senators who accused her of being a communist.
“I don’t know whether to call you ‘professor’ or ‘comrade’,” quipped John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana. Pat Toomey, the top Republican on the panel, said she would “end banking as we know it” and criticised Omarova’s undergraduate thesis on Karl Marx as evidence that she was a “radical” choice.
At one point, Omarova responded: “I am not a communist. I do not subscribe to that ideology. I could not choose where I was born . . . My family suffered under the communist regime.”
Two moderate Democrats also expressed scepticism, a troubling sign for Omarova’s prospects of confirmation in a Senate that is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.
Both Jon Tester, a Democratic senator from Montana, and Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia, voiced concerns about Omarova’s previous criticism of aspects of a 2018 bill they had championed, which relaxed regulations for community banks.
“I’m sorry you had to face what I see as unfair attacks,” Tester said. “I do, however, have some significant concerns about positions that you have taken, including as a witness before this banking committee related to our financial system, bank regulation and legislation related to the OCC.”
Warner added that he was “pretty disappointed” by her stance on the community banking law.
Omarova said she had expressed her concerns that it could inadvertently weaken supervision of some of the country’s biggest lenders, but insisted she supported the act and would implement it if confirmed.
“I testified in connection S. 2155 to express my deep concern about inadvertently loosening regulatory oversight of the largest financial institutions that engage in high risk-trading operations that do not necessarily follow the traditional relational banking model,” she said.
However, her responses did not appear to fully quell Democratic worries over her nomination. Tester said he was also concerned by her proposal for a state-backed national investment authority, which could decide which sectors of the economy to lend money to.
“Do you see how risky that is to make that statement?” he asked her. “With one person making that potential decision . . . and you are a one-man shop. Do you see how dangerous that could be?”
Supporters of Omarova’s nomination repeatedly decried the Republican attacks on her, with Sherrod Brown, the Democratic chair of the Senate banking committee, saying she had been victim of “vile tactics” throughout the process.
“That’s how Republicans turn a qualified woman into a Marxist bogeyman,” Brown said. “Now we know what happens when Trumpism meets McCarthyism.”
Biden’s bank regulator pick at risk after tough Senate grilling
Pinoy Variant