Democrats in the U.S. Senate, under the leadership of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), are attempting to plant the seeds of a digital grass-roots movement to prevent the confirmation of Steven Mnuchin to become the Secretary of the Treasury in President-Elect Donald Trump’s administration.
On a subpage within the Senate Democrats’ website, Mnuchin was dubbed the “Foreclosure King” by the politicians, attributing his new nickname to “his bank’s practice of buying distressed mortgages during the financial crisis and evicting thousands of homeowners.” The bank in question was OneWest Bank, which he sold in 2015. The website insisted that Mnuchin was responsible for “an aggressive strategy of foreclosing on families to rack up profits,” including foreclosing on seniors that took out reverse mortgages. The website invites Americans to “share their personal stories of being impacted by the ‘Foreclosure King’ Steve Mnuchin.”
Sen. Warren used her Facebook page to stir up public apprehension against Mnuchin, using florid language against the former banker.
“After the 2008 housing crash, Steve Mnuchin swooped in to purchase a failed bank with mountains of bad mortgages on its books,” she wrote on Facebook. “He rebranded the bank as OneWest, and led the bank as it raked in billions in profits by aggressively – and sometimes illegally – foreclosing on people’s homes. OneWest also ran a reverse-mortgage subsidiary called Financial Freedom, which serviced 17 percent of the reverse-mortgage market but was responsible for 39 percent for foreclosures. Steve Mnuchin got rich off the backs of working families who were hit hardest by the financial crisis. Donald Trump now wants to hand Steve Mnuchin the keys to the Treasury Department, where he can make big banks even richer at the expense of America’s families. Were you or someone you know hurt by Steve Mnuchin and OneWest Bank’s predatory business practices? The Senate Democrats are asking people to come forward and share their stories.”
