The controversy over confirming Saule Omarova, a law professor at Cornell University, to be the next head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) just got a supercharged boost after it was revealed that the nominee stole $218 in merchandise from a T.J. Maxx in Madison, Wisc., in May 1995.
The American Accountability Project got its hands on the police report.
BREAKING: AAF unearths Biden nominee Saule Omarova's arrest records from 1995 when she stole hundreds of dollars in merchandise from a T.J. Maxx.
Omarova has no respect for our laws, system of government, or our economy.
But Biden wants to put her in charge of American banks. pic.twitter.com/G5rlu6MLDT
— BidenNoms, A Project of AAF (@bidennoms) November 17, 2021
Omarova was 28 at the time of her arrest, so the defense that it was some sort of “youthful indiscretion” doesn’t fly.
The nominee was already in hot water over some curious non-capitalist views she expressed in the past. This is from someone who was being nominated to regulate American capitalism via its banks?
If you’re a radical leftist, what’s not to like?
Omarova, a professor at the Cornell Law School, has said she wants to “end banking as we know it” by requiring bank deposits to be held with the Federal Reserve, rather than private banks. Omarova has also proposed the creation of a federal agency, the National Investment Authority, that would fulfill the goals of the Green New Deal by investing in infrastructure projects. Omarova said one goal of the National Investment Authority would be for oil and gas companies to go “bankrupt” in order to fight climate change.
Yes, she’s a real piece of work and has no business being within 100 miles of a bank, much less regulating them. But she will almost certainly be confirmed because … wait for it … she’s a girl and she’s a POC.
Related: Biden’s Banking Chief Nominee Wants to Eliminate Your Private Bank Account
And if you don’t like that, you’re a racist, misogynistic, bully.
Omarova has attracted unusually personal criticism from some of her critics. They have brought up her birth in Kazakhstan, and an academic paper she recently wrote proposing a reinvention of the U.S. financial system as proof that she hasn’t “repudiated her Soviet-era views,” as The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board put it.
Omarova, who came to the U.S. as a university student, and is now a U.S. citizen, strongly denies she holds communist views. She accused her critics of singling her out because she is a woman and a minority.
The circumstances of her retail theft are unimportant. An over-25-year-old beef over a couple of hundred dollars could be dismissed as not relevant, except that throwing everything out there to try and defeat this person and keep her from any position of responsibility in government is important.
In one paper, Omarova suggests the federal government could offer a bank account to every American through the Federal Reserve. Supporters of that proposal say it would reduce the number of “unbanked” persons significantly. Critics argue it would undermine commercial banks.
In another article, she calls for the creation of an agency not unlike the Food and Drug Administration, that would be charged with approving or rejecting new financial products.
That was originally the plan for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. The CFPB was supposed to vet financial products in order to protect consumers from their own stupidity. Fortunately, more rational heads prevailed, and the plan never made it off the ground.
The White House claims that her arrest was the result of a “misunderstanding.” The police report says something different. According to the report, Omarova “admitted to have stolen the items,” which consisted of four pairs of shoes, two bottles of cologne, two belts, and a pair of socks.
At present, three Democratic senators are on the fence about confirming her. Biden is going to have to apply the screws to get her confirmed.
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