Biden Withdraws Radical Banking Nominee Saule Omarova
Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the office of the Comptroller of the Currency, withdrew her nomination Tuesday after Democrats and Republicans opposed her controversial views to eliminate community banks and fossil fuel companies.
Breitbart News has extensively covered Omarova’s nomination to the Comptroller of the Currency position and her radical views as a Cornell Law professor.
If the Senate confirmed Omarova, she would have had the “most powerful, least accountable” position over the banking system, a former senior government official told Breitbart News in November.
Senators, including Democrats such as Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), became increasingly critical of the Biden nominee as Breitbart News and other organizations revealed her controversial vision for the American banking system.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) told Breitbart News in late October that Omarova’s support of “Communist ideals” disqualifies her for the position, a move that pressured Tester to oppose her nomination.
In her academic work, she has called to eliminate all bank accounts and to transfer all bank deposits to “FedAccounts” at the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank.
When talking about FedAccounts, the former senior government official said, “The Democratic Party over the last couple of administrations, they want the government to essentially take over a lot of financial functions from banks.”
Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney noted that Omarova would end community banking as we know it if the Senate were to confirm her.
Omarova also called for the creation of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, that would grant the federal government massive control over Americans’ financial activity.
She even complained once that the “massive digitization of finance,” which includes digital currencies such as Bitcoin, wrested control over Americans’ money from the government.
Omarova also came under fire after she said that she wanted to bankrupt fossil fuel companies to facilitate climate change policies.
“A lot of the smaller players in that [coal, oil, and natural gas] industry are going to probably go bankrupt in short order – at least we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change, right?” Omarova added.
During her Senate nomination, she blamed her call to eliminate the fossil fuel industry on “poor phrasing.”
Omarova also enflamed controversy after refusing to pledge not to politicize lending in a manner similar to the Obama administration’s notorious Operation Choke Point.
Carney also wrote an op-ed for Breitbart News, noting that Democrats and establishment media outlets such as New York Magazine engaged in a cover-up of her views ahead of her Senate nomination hearing.
New York Magazine’s puff piece for Omarova said criticisms of her academic work were “ludicrous red-baiting.” The establishment outlet also allowed Omarova to mischaracterize her own views, including not quoting from her own papers.
Many Senate Democrats claimed that Republicans were “red-baiting” Omarova since she graduated from Moscow State University in 1989.
Omarova has refused to divulge her thesis, “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital,” to the Senate Banking Committee, as Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey has repeatedly requested.
Despite Senate Democrats’ defense of Omarova, many Democrats remained concerned about her radical views, leading to their opposition to Omarova’s confirmation.
Sens. Tester, Mark Warner (D-VA), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) called Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) late Wednesday, announcing their opposition to the comptroller nominee. Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) also announced their opposition to her, effectively sinking her confirmation.
Despite bipartisan opposition to her nomination, Brown claimed in a statement Tuesday that Omarova was a victim of “red scare McCarthyism:”
Despite her unquestioned expertise and her bipartisan record, powerful interests distorted Professor Omarova’s views and writings. In a relentless smear campaign reminiscent of red scare McCarthyism, they have shamefully attacked her family, her heritage, and her commitment to American ideals. I am disappointed that these spurious attacks and misrepresentations of Professor Omarova’s views were not resoundingly rejected in a bipartisan manner.
One thing is clear: we need regulators at the OCC and beyond who are not in the pockets of Wall Street – public servants who will ensure the economy works for everyone, and who will protect our economic recovery from the risky activities of Wall Street and unregulated tech companies.
He added, “I will continue to work with the Biden Administration to fill these posts that are critical to our economy.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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