Elizabeth Warren: Trump's treasury secretary pick 'grinds families into the dirt'

Dominic Rushe in New York
Wednesday 18 January 2017 22.25 GMT

Homeowners who lost their homes or face eviction after running into difficulties with a bank previously run by treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin urged the Senate on Wednesday to reject his nomination.

Donald Trump’s pick for treasury secretary had made millions “grinding families into the dirt”, the conference’s organizer, Senator Elisabeth Warren, said while introducing four women who had loans with Mnuchin’s former firm, OneWest.

Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, hedge fund manager, film financier and CEO of OneWest, will appear before the Senate finance committee on Thursday. Warren has been blocked from allowing the unhappy OneWest borrowers to testify at the hearing. “The secretary of treasury will personally touch the lives of every single person in the US,” Warren said. “We have had a chance to hear about the lives of four people (Mnuchin) has touched, and the results were devastating.”

Mnuchin led a team of investors that took over California-based lender IndyMac in 2009 after the bank was undone by its portfolio of risky loans. The entity was renamed OneWest and, according to critics, embarked on a concerted effort to foreclose on loans and seize borrowers’ properties.

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