Courtesy of Pam Martens.
President Obama Nominates Mary Jo White for Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission
At a time when restoring trust in our financial system is critical to the Nation’s ability to grow, create jobs and restore consumer and investor confidence, President Obama has nominated two deeply conflicted individuals to head the U.S. Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Jack Lew has already been confirmed and sworn in as the new Treasury Secretary; Mary Jo White’s confirmation hearing will occur this morning before the Senate Banking Committee.
The process surrounding Jack Lew’s confirmation hearing appeared to have been stage-managed by an invisible hand to deny the public the right to learn of his mountains of questionable dealings in the private sector. Senator Orrin Hatch, speaking during debate by the full Senate on the confirmation of Lew, had this to say about the process:
“For well over a decade, the Finance Committee has followed a specified procedure when considering Executive Branch nominations. Sadly that procedure was not followed in the case of Mr. Lew. After publicly announcing Mr. Lew’s nomination, the White House waited 26 days before submitting any of his paper work. That was an atypically long delay and in addition slowed the vetting process. It ensured Mr. Lew would not be confirmed in time to prevent a vacancy at the Treasury Department.
“A nomination hearing was scheduled to be held only 12 calendar days after the paperwork was received, even though the nominee had not yet answered all of the questions that were submitted to him. That is simply not the way our process has worked in the past and the undue haste seriously hampered our ability to thoroughly examine Mr. Lew’s background and his qualifications. Once the hearing was completed, as is customary, members of the Finance Committee submitted written time. Anonymous administration sources have decried the very notion that members of the Finance Committee had the audacity to ask hundreds of questions of Mr. Lew as part of their constitutional advice and consent responsibilities.”
Allow me to expand on this description by Senator Hatch. Were it not for reporting by the New York Post, the august United States Senate with legions of attorneys and researchers would not have learned that Jack Lew had been given over $1 million in mortgage loans by the nonprofit New York University. Only through repeated rounds of questioning did the Senate learn that much of these loans were forgiven and the interest reimbursed by NYU.
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