Trump Picks Steve Mnuchin To Lead Treasury Department

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President-elect Donald Trump has picked his campaign finance chairman, Steve Mnuchin, to be his Treasury secretary. The Wall Street banker spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was a partner, and is now chief executive of Dune Capital Management, a privately owned hedge fund.

Mnuchin confirmed his selection Wednesday during a joint CNBC interview with billionaire investor Wilbur Ross Jr., who has been tapped for commerce secretary.

"Steve Mnuchin is a world-class financier, banker and businessman, and has played a key role in developing our plan to build a dynamic, booming economy that will create millions of jobs," Trump said in a statement.

Mnuchin, 53, joined the Trump campaign in April when the organization's fundraising campaign barely existed. He also was involved deeply in developing the president-elect's tax proposals, which could deliver as much as $6 trillion in tax reductions over 10 years, but might also contribute to much larger budget deficits. As Treasury secretary he would take a lead role in developing policies aimed at boosting the country's economic growth.

"I understand what needs to be done to fix the economy," Mnuchin said in a statement, adding he would help implement "a bold economic agenda."

Over the years, Mnuchin has contributed to both Republican and Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. He has also been a financier of high-profile movies, including this past summer's Suicide Squad, a big financial success. He also was an executive producer of the movies American Sniper and Mad Max: Fury Road.

The banker's involvement in OneWest Bank following the 2008 housing market crash could complicate his confirmation.

In 2009, Mnuchin put together a group of billionaire investors, including George Soros and hedge-fund titan John Paulson, that bought failed California-based bank IndyMac, a big mortgage lender. The FDIC agreed to absorb the losses of the bank above a certain threshold.

The bank was renamed OneWest Bank, and Mnuchin became its chairman and CEO. The bank developed a reputation during the recession for being quick to foreclose on delinquent homeowners, closing on more than 36,000 households under Mnuchin, according the housing-advocacy group California Reinvestment Coalition. In 2011, protesters went to Mnuchin's Bel Air mansion with a sign that read, "Stop Taking Our Homes."</s>(JTA) — Trump campaign finance chief Steve Mnuchin confirmed that president-elect Donald Trump has selected him to serve as Treasury Secretary.

Mnuchin made the announcement during an early morning CNBC interview appearing with billionaire investor Wilbur Ross Jr., who has been nominated as commerce secretary.

Mnuchin, 53, who is Jewish, made his fortune as a banker for Goldman Sachs, and has also helmed smaller banks and produced blockbusters like “Avatar” and the “X-Men” movies.

Multiple media outlets, including Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post, said in alerts posted late Tuesday that Mnuchin was Trump’s Treasury pick.

Mnuchin, who backed Mitt Romney in the 2012 election and joined the Trump campaign in April, was among the earliest of Republican establishment figures to support Trump’s insurgent campaign for the Republican nomination. His father is the noted art dealer, Robert Mnuchin, who also made a fortune at Goldman Sachs.</s>(JTA) — Trump campaign finance chief Steve Mnuchin confirmed that President-elect Donald Trump has selected him to serve as Treasury secretary.

Mnuchin made the announcement during an early morning CNBC interview appearing with billionaire investor Wilbur Ross Jr., who has been nominated as Commerce secretary.

Mnuchin, 53, who is Jewish, made his fortune as a banker for Goldman Sachs, and has also helmed smaller banks and also produced the blockbuster films “Avatar” and the “X-Men,” among others.

Multiple media outlets, including Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post, said in alerts posted late Tuesday that Mnuchin was Trump’s Treasury pick.

Mnuchin, who backed Mitt Romney in the 2012 election and joined the Trump campaign in April, was among the earliest of Republican establishment figures to support Trump’s insurgent campaign for the party’s nomination. His father is the noted art dealer Robert Mnuchin, who also made his fortune at Goldman Sachs.</s>President-elect Donald Trump's selection for Treasury secretary says tax reform will be his top priority and promises the largest tax overhaul since the Reagan administration.

Steven Mnuchin made the pledge in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.

Mnuchin, a former Wall Street insider who ran an eclectic series of businesses before becoming a Hollywood producer, confirmed that he was Trump's pick for the Treasury job, which has vast responsibility for regulating the financial industry and oversees the IRS.

Mnuchin told CNBC he expects interest rates to stay relatively low for the next two years. He also said Janet Yellen has done a "good job" as Federal Reserve chair.

"I think the United States is the greatest country in the world to invest in," he said.

He also promised corporate tax cuts to "bring huge amounts of jobs back to the United States."

For individuals, he said any reductions in upper-income taxes would be "offset by less deductions that pay for it." He also said that a "big middle income tax cut" would be another part of the reform plan, adding that "taxes are way too complicated" and that people spend "way too much time worrying about ways to get them lower."

Wilbur Ross, a billionaire who has made a career of resurrecting dying companies, confirmed in the same interview that he is Trump's choice for commerce secretary, the face of American business around the world.

Related: Carrier says it has struck a deal with Trump to keep jobs in Indiana

Ross praised a deal with Trump announced Monday by Carrier, the air conditioner manufacturer, to keep nearly 1,000 jobs in Indiana rather than shipping them to Mexico.

"Here we have a trade victory before we've even come into office," he said.

Both Mnuchin and Ross would need to be confirmed by the Senate.

As Treasury secretary, Mnuchin would be the face of the American economy around the world. The job carries expansive responsibility, including managing the federal debt and overseeing Wall Street and the financial markets.

Mnuchin, like his father before him, was a partner at Goldman Sachs. He worked for the firm for 17 years, joining at age 22 and leaving just before his 40th birthday, in 2002.

He briefly joined the hedge fund of his former college roommate Eddie Lampert. Mnuchin still serves as a director of Sears Holding, (SHLD) of which Lampert is chairman and CEO.

After less than a year, he left Lampert to work as a portfolio manager for the hedge fund of George Soros, the billionaire financier who has bankrolled liberal candidates and causes -- and who was depicted as a villain in Trump's last campaign ad.

He only stayed a year, leaving in September 2004 to start his own hedge fund, Dune Capital Management.

As a producer, he has put out films including "American Sniper," "The Lego Movie" and this summer's "Suicide Squad." His latest film, which opened right before Thanksgiving, is called "Rules Don't Apply."

Mnuchin led the group that bought failed subprime lender IndyMac for pennies on the dollar in 2009, about a year after the FDIC took over the California bank following a run on deposits by customers.

IndyMac had become a poster child for the risky home loans that brought on the housing crisis and the meltdown in financial markets. The FDIC agreed to assume much of the losses as part of its sale to Mnuchin, who renamed it OneWest.

But regulators soon questioned OneWest's foreclosure practices, which included so-called robo-signings that pushed homeowners into foreclosure without proper review or due process.

The bank was one of many that agreed to pay millions in fines to compensate customers. Occupy Los Angeles protesters showed up at Mnuchin's Bel Air mansion. And this month, two fair housing groups in California filed a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, accusing the bank of discriminating against minority borrowers during his tenure there.

As commerce secretary, Ross would serve as the government's chief business advocate. The Commerce secretary is a liaison between companies and the White House. Ross could play a key role in what are expected to be Trump's signature economic policy issues like trade and jobs.

As a vocal Trump supporter before the election, Ross cited the need for a "more radical, new approach to government" that would help middle class and lower middle class Americans.

Ross is chairman of WL Ross & Co., which has specialized in reassembling dying companies. Fittingly, some of Ross's biggest hits have been in the same demoralized industries that Trump wants to revive: steel and coal.

For instance, Ross's firm scored huge returns last decade by cobbling together bankrupt steel makers including Bethlehem Steel to form International Steel Group. Ross then flipped the conglomerate in a $4.5 billion sale two years later.

Ross's foray into the coal industry, however, ran into trouble in January 2006 when 12 miners were killed after an explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia. His company, the International Coal Group, had taken over the mine a couple months earlier.

According to federal reports, the mine had recorded 96 safety violations in 2005 that were deemed "serious and substantial." The mine was fined nearly $134,000, an amount later reduced in court.

Ross, a New Jersey native, has amassed a fortune that Forbes estimates is worth nearly $3 billion. He's used some of that money to build an impressive art collection worth a reported $150 million.</s>WASHINGTON (JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary reportedly is Steven Mnuchin, the banker and movie producer who was his campaign’s finance chief.

Mnuchin, who is Jewish and in his mid-50s, made his fortune as a banker for Goldman Sachs, and has also helmed smaller banks and produced blockbusters like Avatar and the X-Men movies.

Multiple media, including Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post, said in alerts posted late Tuesday that Mnuchin was Trump’s Treasury pick.

Mnuchin, who backed Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, was among the earliest of Republican establishment figures to support Trump’s insurgent campaign for the Republican nomination. His father is the noted art dealer, Robert Mnuchin, who also made a fortune at Goldman Sachs.

The choice of Mnuchin for Treasury secretary may come as a surprise, considering how Trump campaigned against moneyed interests victimizing working classes. One California bank Mnuchin headed, IndyMac, was dubbed the “foreclosure machine,” according to NPR, profiting from as many as 36,000 foreclosures.

Mnuchin is not the only Goldman Sachs alumnus advising Trump – his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, also worked for the bank. Trump nonetheless castigated Wall Street during his campaign, and in one of his final ads cast Goldman Sachs’ CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, as a villain.</s>Steven Mnuchin, the Trump campaign's finance director, arrives at U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Trump Tower in New York, U.S. on Tuesday.

Steven Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs executive and a trusted aide of Donald Trump. The U.S. president-elect is yet to name two major Cabinet positions — the Secretary of State and the Defence Secretary.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will name campaign loyalist and former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin as his Treasury secretary, multiple media reports said on Tuesday.

The nomination of Mr. Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary is expected to be formally announced later on Wednesday.

Mr. Trump is also expected to name Wilbur Ross Jr as his Commerce Secretary.

On Monday, Mr. Trump nominated Elaino Chao as his Transportation Secretary, hinting that he was on a fast track mode to fill up his Cabinet-level positions as quickly as possible.

He is yet to name two major Cabinet positions — the Secretary of State and the Defence Secretary.

Mr. Mnuchin, 53, was a trusted aide of Mr. Trump during the elections as he was his national finance chairman.

“When Mr.Trump is sworn on January 20, the success of his presidency will rest as much in Mr. Mnuchin’s hands as those of any other presidential appointee,” The Wall Street Journal said.

“Mr. Mnuchin’s longtime Wall Street ties — his father spent his entire career at Goldman — make him a traditional pick for the Treasury spot. But the choice is at odds with Mr. Trump’s message that economic and political elites have left the country damaged. Still, his establishment profile may sit more comfortably with the Republicans in the Senate, which decides whether to confirm the nominee,” the daily said.

Mr. Mnuchin met Trump in New York on Monday. Mr. Trump’s Treasury pick was criticised by the Democrats.

“Mr. Trump is giving Republicans and their special interest friends an early Christmas gift by tapping a former Wall Street executive to lead the US Treasury Department,” said Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader in the Congress.

“By selecting a Wall Street banker who profited from the financial crisis to serve as America’s chief tax regulator and main overseer of our financial system, President-elect Trump is handing over the keys to the same players who drove our economy into a ditch,” Ms. Pelosi alleged.

“Nominating Steve Mnuchin to be Treasury Secretary — a billionaire hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs alumnus who preyed on home owners struggling during the recession — is a slap in the face to voters who hoped he would shake up Washington,” said the Democratic National Committee Communications Director Adam Hodge.</s>U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name financier Steven Mnuchin as his choice for Treasury secretary and the announcement could come as early as Wednesday, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing sources close to the transition.</s>President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker who profited from the housing meltdown, as his Treasury secretary, according to an official briefed on the decision.

Mnuchin's career has been full of contradictions. He started as a Wall Street insider working for old-line firms before running a series of eclectic businesses -- including his own hedge fund and a West Coast consumer bank. In recent years, he has been a Hollywood movie producer.

He served as finance chairman of Trump's presidential campaign and has been one of Trump's closest economic advisers. His nomination will be announced as soon as Wednesday, the official said.

Democrats immediately signaled their strong opposition to the expected nomination, which would require Senate confirmation. In a statement, the Democratic National Committee quipped "So much for draining the swamp." The DNC added that "nominating Steve Mnuchin to be Treasury Secretary... is a slap in the face to voters who hoped he would shake up Washington."

As Treasury secretary, the 53-year-old Mnuchin would be the face of the American economy around the world. The Treasury Department has expansive responsibility over business and oversees banking regulations, financial markets and the IRS. It has about 100,000 employees, an estimated 91,000 of them at the IRS.

Besides co-signing the currency, the Treasury secretary is Uncle Sam's banker -- paying the bills, collecting taxes, managing the federal government debt and selling billions of dollars a year in Treasury bonds.

Mnuchin, like his father before him, was a partner at Goldman. He worked for the firm for 17 years, joining at age 22 and leaving just before his 40th birthday, in 2002.

He briefly joined the hedge fund of his former college roommate Eddie Lampert. Mnuchin still serves as a director of Sears Holdings (SHLD), of which Lampert is chairman and CEO.

After less than a year, he left Lampert to work as a portfolio manager for the hedge fund of George Soros, the billionaire financier who has bankrolled liberal candidates and causes -- and who was depicted as a villain in Trump's last campaign ad.

He only stayed a year, leaving in September 2004 to start his own hedge fund, Dune Capital Management.

As a producer, he has put out films including "American Sniper," "The Lego Movie" and this summer's "Suicide Squad." His latest film, which opened right before Thanksgiving, is called "Rules Don't Apply."

Mnuchin joined the Trump campaign as finance chairman in May, and sources tell CNN he made it clear early that he wanted the Treasury job. He recruited deputies before he was tapped for the job.

Mnuchin has contributed to both Republican and Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton's Senate campaigns and 2008 presidential run. He gave to Barack Obama's Senate and presidential campaigns and to Charles Schumer, the new Democratic leader in the Senate.

Mnuchin and his brother were sued by the trustee trying to recover money for Bernard Madoff's victims after his Ponzi scheme unraveled in 2008. They were executors of their mother's estate, and had withdrawn her investment with Madoff shortly after she died in 2005.

A court eventually blocked the trustee, Irving Picard, from collecting Mnuchin's mother's $3.2 million in profits withdrawn from the Madoff fund long before its collapse.

Mnuchin led the group that bought failed subprime lender IndyMac for pennies on the dollar in 2009, about a year after the FDIC took over the California bank following a run on deposits by customers.

IndyMac had become a poster child for the risky home loans that brought on the housing crisis and the meltdown in financial markets. The FDIC agreed to assume much of the losses as part of its sale to Mnuchin, who renamed it OneWest.

But regulators soon questioned OneWest's foreclosure practices, which included so-called robo-signings that pushed homeowners into foreclosure without proper review or due process.

The bank was one of many that agreed to pay millions in fines to compensate customers. Occupy Los Angeles protesters showed up at Mnuchin's Bel Air mansion. And this month, two fair housing groups in California filed a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, accusing the bank of discriminating against minority borrowers during his tenure there.

Mnuchin eventually sold OneWest to CIT Group (CIT) in 2014 for $3.4 billion and joined CIT as part of the deal. When he left CIT less than two years later, he received a $10.9 million severance package.</s>Former Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin has been confirmed as Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary.

Mnuchin, a 53-year-old former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker turned Hollywood financier…..who was also a one time Soros employee who has no government experience, confirmed he had been tapped to serve as the President-elects Treasury Secretary.

Is this a signal that Trump’s administration will be pro–Wall Street?…what happened about draining the swamp?

The appointment of Mnuchin certainly signifies yet another shift from the President-elect’s major campaign promises. During his campaign Trump said that Goldman Sachs had total control of Hillary Clinton and had ‘robbed our working class’.

President-elect Donald Trump continues to betray the populist, drain-the-swamp rhetoric that propelled him into office with each new cabinet appointment. Whoever runs the U.S. Department of the Treasury arguably has more sway over the United States — and even the global economy — than even the president himself. As Mnuchin’s cabinet appointment appears to be on track for an official announcement Wednesday, his record should be closely examined, particularly in comparison to the populist veneer Trump constructed for himself during the course of his presidential campaign.

In a 2-minute campaign ad released just before the election, Trump’s voice is heard blasting “the political establishment,” as images of stern-faced, blue-collar workers are shown alongside the faces of public figures like Hillary Clinton, and more notably, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Shortly after the 1-minute mark of the ad, Blankfein is shown giving a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative, as Trump blasts the “handful of large corporations” benefiting from the largesse of the federal government:

Mnuchin is the epitome of Wall Street insider, having been raised as the son of a Goldman Sachs partner and working for the company between 1985 and 2002. Even in spite of Wall Street’s bad reputation with blue-collar America following the global financial crash of 2008, Mnuchin proudly embraces his colleagues in the financial sector.

“I wouldn’t in any way say I distanced myself from Wall Street,” Mnuchin told the New York Times. “I have very good friends on Wall Street.”

As a banker, Mnuchin’s record shows he has a rather crass attitude towards salt-of-the-earth Americans, having presided over banks that aggressively foreclosed on homeowners in the wake of the financial crisis and was caught discriminating against black and latino mortgage applicants. A lawsuit filed by two California housing advocacy groups named CIT Group, the company that recently bought Mnuchin’s OneWest bank, in which Mnuchin himself owns $100 million in stock, according to the Washington Post.

“The bank has no significant branch presence in communities of color,” stated Kevin Stein, who is the deputy director of the California Reinvestment Coalition. “Its home loans to borrowers and communities of color are low in absolute terms, low compared to its peer banks, and low when compared to what one would expect.”

When Mnuchin ran OneWest bank, he oversaw the foreclosure of 36,000 homeowners. One of those homeowners was Leslie Parks, who, in 2009, returned to her Minneapolis home in the midst of a blizzard to find that her locks had been changed in her absence. Stein referred to OneWest Bank as a “foreclosure machine.”

Mnuchin also made off with a $3.2 million windfall he secured as a result of Bernie Madoff’s infamous Ponzi scheme, which defrauded investors out of billions. Financial enforcers allowed Mnuchin to keep his ill-gotten gains, as he and his brother were able to pull out of the Ponzi scheme before it fell apart. Lawsuits by investors defrauded by Madoff to recoup that money were unsuccessful due to statute of limitation loopholes.</s>Like the post-credits bonus scene in a Marvel superhero movie, Donald Trump’s final pre-election ad added three surprising villains to his usual rogues’ gallery (Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, assorted foreigners): Lloyd Blankfein, George Soros and Janet Yellen.

All three deal with money: Blankfein as CEO of the Goldman Sachs investment back, Soros as a leading hedge funder and Yellen as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve. All three are Jewish.

And now, Blankfein and Soros also have this in common: They both once employed Steven Mnuchin, the man who would be President Trump’s Treasury secretary – and who also is Jewish.

Mnuchin, who confirmed Wednesday he was Trump’s Treasury pick, reported to Blankfein in the 1990s when Blankfein helmed Goldman Sachs’ fixed income division. (Blankfein told the Washington Post that Mnuchin was a “very smart guy” when he knew him, but they haven’t stayed in touch over the years.)

After leaving Goldman Sachs in 2002, Mnuchin spent a brief period working for Soros, who then helped him set up Duke Capital Management.

Mnuchin was one of the early establishment Republican donors who backed Trump, and was the finance chairman for the campaign.

This raises three questions for the Trump transition team, and for Mnuchin:

What did Mnuchin think of the ad?

Lots of Trump defenders on social media are pointing to the naming of Mnuchin to refute claims Trump is an anti-Semite (although few of the same the same folks eased up on Obama when he named a former civilian volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces, Rahm Emanuel, as his chief of staff).

The more credible accusation against Trump is not that he is anti-Semitic, but that he and his campaign have trafficked in language and conspiracy theories that would immediately be understood by anti-Semites as signaling Jewish villainy — and galvanize them to back the campaign. In the closing ad, photos of Soros and Yellen accompanied Trump’s denunciation of “those who control the levers of power in Washington” and “the global special interests.” Blankfein’s face was used to illustrate the “global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.”

As campaign finance chairman, Mnuchin might well have signed off on the ad. What did he think, not just of the framing of relatively obscure Jewish banking figures as villains, but of the inclusion of two people who mentored him?

What will Trump’s voters think of the choice?

Mnuchin is not just a graduate of the moneyed class Trump claimed to repudiate during his campaign, or of the very firm that Trump said had “total control” over Hillary Clinton: He is known for running a bank, OneWest, that profited from as many as 36,000 foreclosures, according to a housing advocacy group.

NPR tracked down a couple, Rose and Rex Schaffer, who lost their home of nearly 50 years after failing to persuade a phalanx of bureaucrats to back down. They voted for Trump. Asked about Mnuchin’s new prospective job, they sounded puzzled: “If he can’t run his own little bank, how can he handle a large thing for the United States?” Rose Schaffer asked.

Questions like that may proliferate. Trump, who campaigned hard on a protectionist platform, is naming Wilbur Ross, a billionaire who has explored China’s markets for investment opportunities, as his Commerce secretary.

What happens to Yellen?

Janet Yellen is the only villain in the Trump ad who does not seem to have once had a nurturing relationship with Mnuchin, so she’s yesterday’s news, right?

Not so much. Trump obviously doesn’t like her, saying during the campaign that the Fed kept interest rates artificially low to prop up Obama, but there’s not much he can do until 2018, when her term ends and he gets to name her replacement.

Then again, Trump is flirting with folks he lacerated during the campaign; after he and 2012 nominee Mitt Romney exchanged terms of art like “fraud” and “loser,” Trump is now considering Romney for secretary of state.

Mnuchin in his interviews seems more focused on a tax overhaul then he does on the Fed; on Wednesday morning, he told CNBC that Yellen was doing a “good job.”
Trump picks banker and businessman Steven Mnuchin to be his Secretary of the Treasury.