Democrats Had A Chance To Grill Steve Mnuchin, But They Didn’t Take it

Senate Democrats were presented with an easy opportunity on Thursday to deflate the populist bluster of the incoming Trump administration.

For more than 5 hours, a second-generation ex-Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager who owned and led a bank that foreclosed on tens of thousands of Americans in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis testified before the Finance Committee. Instead of sustained, focused questioning about Steve Mnuchin’s role running what activists called a “foreclosure machine” and personally reaping an estimated $380 million in the process, Democrats tried to pin Trump’s treasury secretary pick down on a huge swath of tax, trade and regulatory policies.