President Joe Biden‘s nominee for Comptroller of the Currency in the Department of Treasury once used a strong epithet to refer to those in the financial services industry, raising questions about her objectivity if confirmed to the post.
“The financial services industry, in my view, and I don’t think I’m alone here, is the quintessential a—— industry,” Cornell University law professor Saule Omarova can be seen saying in a video circulating on social media.
President Biden listens during the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Friday, Sept. 17, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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“Federal regulators must be fair and impartial, but Joe Biden’s bank regulator, Saule Omarova, has called the financial services industry, the ‘quintessential a****** industry,'” the American Accountability Foundation posted on Twitter. “How could anyone expect to be treated fairly by her office?”
Omarova’s comment is the latest controversial move from the Biden nominee, who has already received opposition from at least one Democratic senator in the heavily divided Senate.
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Sen. Jon Tester, a member of the Banking Committee that will vet the nominee, has already said that he has “concerns” about Omarova, who has received strong pushback for her position that the Federal Reserve should provide bank accounts for Americans instead of private institutions, which she says will “end banking as we know it.”
Additionally, Omarova has drawn scrutiny over her past comments and studies, as she refuses to turn over her thesis on Marxism while a student at Moscow State University.
Omarova was born in the Soviet Union in what is now the nation of Kazakhstan and graduated from Moscow State University in 1989. She pointed favorably to the USSR’s practices as recently as 2019, when she tweeted about the gender pay gap, citing the USSR as a better model.
U.S. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey, R-Pa., last week asked Omarova to turn over a copy of her thesis – in both English and the original Russian – for review by the committee no later than Oct. 13. Her thesis, titled “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital,” remains an item of interest to some members of the committee.
UNSPECIFIED – CIRCA 1865: Karl Marx (1818-1883), philosopher and German politician. (Photo by Roger Viollet Collection/Getty Images)
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“While it appears that you have deleted any reference to your thesis in the version of your curriculum vitae (CV) that is currently available on the Cornell Law School website, the paper appeared on your CV as recently as April 2017,” Toomey wrote on Oct. 6.
Omarova had not complied with the request as of Tuesday, Fox News has confirmed.
GOP Sens led by Toomey and Crapo attacking Dems’ IRS reporting requirement proposal.
(Tyler Olson Fox News)
“Ms. Omarova has time to attack Republicans in an interview with the Financial Times, but she can’t bother to comply with a Banking Committee requirement that nominees– regardless of their political party or ideology–submit copies of their writings,” said Amanda Gonzalez Thompson, a spokesperson for Senate Banking Committee Republicans. “We certainly hope she reconsiders so Senators have the information necessary to fulfill their constitutional duty to advise and consent on appointments.”
Omarova did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News.
Fox News’ Tyler Olson and Peter Aitken contributed to this report.
