Trump Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin struggled to answer basic questions about ethics laws and his potential role in handling the president-elect’s massive financial holdings at Thursday’s Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), a former auditor, noted that Trump’s debts to foreign countries could impact national security. She explained why his proposed plan to donate the “profits” from his hotels that come from foreign governments is all but meaningless.
Mnuchin, who has no government experience but years of experience as a Goldman Sachs Wall Street banker and hedge fund manager, was unable to answer McCaskill’s basic questions about ethics rules and how the process will work.
“[If] somebody wants to come in and buy one of President Trump’s properties, and if CFIUS [the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which the treasury secretary chairs] meets, and you decide it’s going to risk national security,” she asked, “the ultimate decision is whose?”
After dodging the question with a comment about how he’d take his role as CFIUS chair “very, very seriously,” she asked him again.
“Do you know whose decision it is, ultimately, under the law?” she asked.
“Yes. It’s mine.” he responded.
“No,” she admonished him. “It’s not. It’s the president of the United States’. You make a decision and then it goes to the president and the president gets to decide — the same guy that, I think, is going to hire his own ethics person.”
McCaskill then lamented that “we got the emoluments clause because a foreign government gave a snuffbox to the president of the United States. That almost seems kind of de minimis, in light of how complicated the international aspect of holdings that the president is going to stay with through his presidency.”
Finally, she noted that her ears “perked up” when she heard that the president’s pledge about “profits from foreign governments going to the treasury,” because “as you well know, you benefit from income to your business, even if it’s not profitable. Correct?”
A confused Mnuchin asked “How do you benefit of income if it’s not profitable?”
McCaskill explained that if Trump’s Washington hotel is losing $1 million a year, a foreign government government buys a suite of rooms for $800,000, he’d benefit from that income.
“I’m following your reasoning,” Mnuchin replied wearily. But when asked who would make that call about whether his businesses are profiting from foreign involvement, he simply offered to “follow up with her” about the “interesting comments” she had raised.
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