Saule Omarova, one of the most controversial picks of President Biden to be the comptroller of the currency, has canceled her nomination. This was reported on Tuesday after a major backlash came about from both sides of Congress over her academic writings- where they stated that she advocated for the end of traditional banking- the way it had been for so many years.
During her Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing the previous month, legislators were quite quick to point out her Soviet origins, while raising the question of her academic papers and how they were proposing a shift from consumer banking.
Saule Omarova’s Academic Writings Considered Socialist
Sen. Pat Toomey stated that his biggest concern with Professor Saule Omarova was her extremely long history of promoting ideas that were, by her own admission, radical. While he did find them radical, he also found them socialist, which was quite a big taboo in American forms of governance.
Nevertheless, Omarova did try defending her writings as a part of a much larger debate, where she argued that this wasn’t what she had planned to implement while she was Treasury. Following this, she decided to take her name out of consideration, stating that it was no longer feasible for her to go down the same road.
In her statement, Saule Omarova sounded her gratitude towards the President of the country, mentioning that it was quite a true privilege to be nominated by the President to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that would be overseeing the national banking system of the country.
While none of the Democrats were open about their criticism for Saule Omarova, centrist Democrat Senators Jon Tester, Mark Warner, and Kyrsten Sinema spoke about their reservations behind the scenes- thereby making her confirmation very unlikely.
