Donald Trump And The Economy: Treasury Secretary Pick Steven Mnuchin In Democrats' Sights

Democrats are encouraging the public to submit complaints about Treasury Secretary-designate Steven Mnuchin as part of a campaign to determine which of President-elect Donald Trump’s appointments to oppose.

Democrats are focusing on Mnuchin’s tenure at OneWest, a bank he took over at the height of the financial crisis that has been dubbed a “foreclosure machine” that profited from the real estate collapse.

The Wall Street Journal said no Republicans have expressed any opposition to Mnuchin, who likely will be vetted by the Senate Finance Committee. Bloomberg reported Mnuchin, 53, already has met with Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Democrats set up a portal to solicit complaints about Mnuchin.

“Programs were created and available specifically to help banks like OneWest work with families to modify their mortgages and keep them in their homes,” the Democrats say on the site.

“Instead, OneWest pursued an aggressive strategy of foreclosing on families to rack up profits. In one case in Minnesota, a homeowner in a foreclosure dispute with OneWest came home in the middle of a blizzard to find that the locks on her house had been changed.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a member of the Senate Finance and Banking committees, sent a letter to Mnuchin Wednesday, asking for clarification by Jan. 6 on his positions on regulating financial markets, trade policy, terrorist financing and sanctions, and tax and fiscal policy. A spokesman for Mnuchin said the former Goldman Sachs partner had contacted Brown to set up a meeting but the senator never responded.

“Working people need a treasury secretary who will work for them, not Wall Street,” Brown said in a statement. “The American public deserves to know where Mr. Mnuchin stands on the important housing and finance issues that he will oversee. While he made a fortune from the financial crisis, far too many Ohioans have yet to recover from it.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been campaigning against Mnuchin’s nomination on Twitter, accusing him of plotting to make big banks even richer once he has the keys to the Treasury.

Mnuchin has said he thinks the government should get out of the mortgage business, divesting its interests in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Another area the Finance Committee is expected to examine is Mnuchin’s time at Dune Capital Management, the hedge fund he formed in 2004 with two Goldman Sachs colleagues, the New York Times reported. The fund was involved in real estate, movie financing deals and exotic investments, like packaging life insurance policies into bonds that could be sold to investors.