The New York Times reports that Donald Trump will nominate Steven Mnuchin, who chaired Trump’s campaign finance committee, to be secretary of the Treasury.
Trump’s Treasury pick led OneWest, a California-based bank that has been described as a “foreclosure machine.” As NPR reports, Mnuchin spent the 2008 financial crisis “looking to make profits from the ruins of the housing bust.” Kevin Stein of the California Reinvestment Coalition castigated him for running “a bank that created difficulties and financial ruin for tens of thousands of families.”
Bloomberg noted that the “bank carried out more than 36,000 foreclosures during Mnuchin’s reign,” even foreclosing and changing the locks on one woman’s house during a blizzard. “Surveys of housing counselors during Mnuchin’s tenure sometimes showed OneWest to be among the banks with the worst reputations, according to Stein of California Reinvestment,” the business magazine added.
“Surveys of housing counselors during Mnuchin’s tenure sometimes showed OneWest to be among the banks with the worst reputations, according to Stein of California Reinvestment,” the business magazine added.
OneWest was also accused of redlining, or discriminating against minority neighborhoods and borrowers despite “laws ensuring equal access to credit for minority home buyers.”
While Trump spent his campaign creating a foil out of Goldman Sachs and liberal philanthropist George Soros—even creating a closing campaign ad that used what the Anti-Defamation League described as anti-Semitic imagery to depict Soros and the head of Goldman Sachs as representatives of the corrupt “global power structure” responsible for America’s downfall—Mnuchin is also a former Goldman Sachs partner who has also worked for a fund bankrolled by George Soros and Soros Fund Management.
While Mnuchin’s nomination may not square with Trump’s image as a populist challenging the big banks, it does once again confirm the fact that Trump’s campaign was one big, bigoted con.
