Republican senators continued with Trump’s fondness for racial profiling when they picked on President Biden’s nomination for the post of a senior bank regulator. Saule Omarova, professor of law at Cornell, spent the large part of the nomination largely defending her work and personal views to mostly Republican senators.
The menacing atmosphere was sent by John Kennedy, Louisiana. The member of the Senate’s Banking Committee asked her if he should address her as a comrade or professor. It was in line with the typical Republican penchant for racial profiling of people, though the remark drew audible gasps in the Capitol Hill room.
He received a terse reply from Saule Omarova that she had no choice over her place of birth and that she did subscribe to the communist ideology.
Saule Omarova Unsure Of Confirmation As Republicans Brand Her A Communist
The event left Saule Omarova unsure of confirmation for the prestigious post. She was testifying on Thursday to the Senate Committee for the top job as Comptroller of the Currency. This body regulates national savings associations and national banks. It also works with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation plus the Federal Reserve regulating the American Banking sector.
During the George W. Bush regime, Saule Omarova was with the Treasury Department working as a special advisor. She had to field a volley of questions, mostly from Republicans who considered her writings radical.
She had published academic papers in which she had hypothesized sweeping changes in the banking sector which the Republicans interpreted as amounting to a socialist turn in the American financial system.
The attack, supported by rightwing media, earned a scathing rebuke from the committee’s Democratic chairman, Sherrod Brown, Ohio. He said that this was a stock Republican formula where they start by making inaccurate references, distort facts and add words and end up doubting the loyalty of a person towards their country. He said this is what happens when Trumpism and McCarthyism mix.
Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts warned of a vicious smear campaign at the behest of big banks, employing McCarthy’s tactics of racism and sexism, and raising the specter of communist control.
