Rep. Maxine Waters Targets "Foreclosure King" Mnuchin as Case Against Trump's Pick to Head Treasury Builds
"she urged her colleagues in the U.S. Senate to reject Mnuchin's nomination, saying "it shocks the conscience" that Trump "would give the keys to the Treasury to a man whose bank engaged in massive fraud and profited off the backs of Americans that his company threw out on the street." HUD and the DOJ, she wrote, must "do everything in [their] power to ensure that justice is served for those homeowners that fell victim to the illegal activities of OneWest." That bank, "which Mnuchin and a group of investors bought from the carcass of IndyMac in 2009 for pennies on the dollar before flipping it for millions in 2015, has been charitably referred to as a 'foreclosure machine,'" as Bess Levin writes at Vanity Fair. As journalist David Dayen has pointed out, Even among the many bad actors in the national foreclosure crisis, OneWest stood out. It routinely jumped to foreclosure rather than pursue options to keep borrowers in their homes; used fabricated and "robo-signed" documents to secure the evictions; and had a particular talent for dispossessing the homes of senior citizens and people of color. Criticism over his role at the bank has dogged Mnuchin since his nomination, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) declaring him "the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis—he managed to participate in all the worst practices on Wall Street"."
