[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 24 (Friday, February 10, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1076-S1086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Tribute to AlexAnna Salmon

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, these past few weeks, I have had the

[[Page S1077]]

opportunity to come to the floor to recognize truly exceptional 
Alaskans--those who dedicate their time, energy, and talent to 
strengthening our communities and making Alaska a truly extraordinary 
place to call home.
  My colleagues here, those in the Gallery, those watching on TV, might 
know Alaska for its natural wonders. We certainly have those in spades. 
We want you all to come visit. It will be a life-changing experience, I 
promise.
  For those of us who live there, community is everything. Living in 
one of the most magnificent places on Earth also has challenges. We 
depend on each other, our traditional knowledge, our ingenuity, our 
determination to overcome those challenges, particularly as a 
community.
  Today I would like to transport you to the village of Igiugig in 
Southwest Alaska, and introduce you to an amazing young woman who is 
truly making a difference in her community. AlexAnna Salmon is our 
Alaskan of the Week.
  First, a little bit about where she lives. Rich in Alaskan Native 
traditions, her village is home to around 70 residents year-round, 
growing to more than 200 in the summer months. The name Igiugig comes 
from a Yupik word meaning ``like a throat that swallows water.'' It is 
referring to the location of the village which sits where the Kvichak 
River meets Lake Iliamna.
  Western Alaska has been home to thriving, sustainable communities for 
a millennia, but rising energy costs and overregulations have put the 
future of these communities at risk. In fact, many of these 
communities, particularly in rural Alaska, face some of the highest 
energy costs in the country, which is a bit of a cruel irony given how 
resource-rich Alaska is, but in typical Alaska fashion, this village, 
facing these energy challenges, comes together as a community to 
embrace new technologies and new ways to address these challenges.
  At the forefront of this rural revolution and sustainable community 
is our Alaskan of the Week, AlexAnna Salmon. Raised in Igiugig, 
AlexAnna has emerged as a leader in her community, now serving as the 
village council president.
  She has had that position since just after graduating cum laude from 
Dartmouth College in 2008, with a double major in Native American 
studies and anthropology.
  While at Dartmouth, she won a prestigious writing award for her 
senior thesis on life in her village. When she was done with college, 
she, along with her sister, came back to her community, to her village, 
to raise her family. In her words, she stated, ``I felt that I had the 
greatest childhood here in Igiugig. This is where kids need to be 
raised.'' She wants their childhood experiences to be as great or even 
better and meaningful as hers.
  To keep her community thriving, particularly with these energy 
challenges--and to make it even a better place for the next 
generation--she encourages healthy lifestyles, helps improve local 
infrastructure, and works tirelessly toward ensuring that people in her 
village have a sustainable source of food and energy.
  AlexAnna has overseen the establishment of community farms and 
gardens, wind turbines, solar collectors, centralized recycling, 
building upgrades, weatherization, and most recently helped launch a 
very exciting hydro project.
  For her dedication to the well-being of her community and to all 
Alaskans and for tackling unique challenges with both creativity and 
determination, for making the impossible, in some of the most extreme 
parts of our country in terms of rural living, seem possible, AlexAnna 
Salmon is the Alaskan of the Week.
  Congratulations, AlexAnna, and thank you. Your dedication epitomizes 
what it means to be an Alaskan, honoring the traditions of our past and 
seizing the opportunities here and now to provide for a bright future.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, out on the campaign trail, Donald Trump 
talked a big game about Wall Street. He said: ``Wall Street has caused 
tremendous problems for us.'' He claimed that he was not going to let 
Wall Street get away with murder.
  His closing ad expressed outrage at Wall Street ``controlling the 
levers of power in Washington.'' It pictured Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd 
Blankfein as part of ``the global special interests that were rigging 
the economy against working families.''
  Then Trump won, and within days he hired and nominated enough Goldman 
Sachs alumni to open a new bank branch in the White House. His senior 
strategist, Steve Bannon, spent half a decade at Goldman Sachs as an 
investment banker. His National Economic Council Director, Gary Cohn, 
came directly from Goldman Sachs, where he spent 25 years and rose to 
be second in command at the bank. His Senior Counsel for Economic 
Initiatives, Dina Powell, came directly from Goldman Sachs, where she 
has been a partner since 2010.
  Finally, Donald Trump nominated Steve Mnuchin to serve as his 
Secretary of Treasury. Mr. Mnuchin spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs, 
much of it in the distribution that created and peddled the kinds of 
mortgage-backed securities that would later blow up the financial 
system.
  Personnel is policy. The selection of all of these Goldman Sachs 
executives to serve as core members of Trump's economic team shows that 
the President has no interest in reducing Wall Street's influence in 
Washington and leveling the playing field for working families. 
Instead, it will be the same Republican playbook--gutting the rules for 
big banks, firing the cops on Wall Street--the same playbook that paved 
the way for the 2008 financial crisis.
  But even among the group of Goldman Sachs bankers surrounding the 
President, the selection of Mr. Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary stands 
out. The Treasury Secretary leads the Council responsible for making 
sure Wall Street doesn't blow up our economy again.
  The Council cannot do anything without the support of the Treasury 
Secretary. No other official has greater responsibility to stand up to 
Wall Street if they threaten the economy again. Yet there is nothing--
nothing--in Mr. Mnuchin's record to suggest that he could stand up to 
Wall Street. In fact, there is nothing in Mr. Mnuchin's record to 
suggest that he would even want to stand up to Wall Street, that he has 
even thought of standing up to Wall Street.
  Mr. Mnuchin is the ultimate Wall Street insider. From the moment he 
graduated from college until today, he has worked at a big bank or a 
hedge fund. If Wall Street threatens to blow up the economy again, does 
anyone seriously expect Mr. Mnuchin to get tough with his old buddies 
and tell them to knock it off?
  In fact, you can expect just the opposite. Mr. Mnuchin pretty much 
laps the field when it comes to personal experience in tilting the 
playing field in favor of financial interests and against working 
families. In late 2008, as the financial crisis was sweeping across the 
country, Mr. Mnuchin lead a team of millionaires to purchase IndyMac 
Bank out of Federal receivership. He rebranded the bank as OneWest and 
put himself in charge as CEO. Then, Mr. Mnuchin and OneWest acted 
swiftly and decisively to boot more than 60,000 families out of their 
homes across the country.
  Look, I get it. Foreclosures happen in an economic crisis. But 
OneWest, Mr. Mnuchin's bank, was different. It quickly gained a 
reputation as a foreclosure machine, both because it was so aggressive 
at foreclosing on families and because the bank hardly did anything 
else.
  Countless homeowners who were trapped by a OneWest mortgage had their 
lives turned upside down. Some ended up homeless.

  How sleazy and out of line was Mr. Mnuchin's bank? Well, the bank 
paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits for predatory foreclosure 
practices. They were so sleazy that they even got hit with almost $3 
million in fines for violating the rights of dozens of Active-Duty 
servicemembers.

[[Page S1078]]

  You really have to ask: What kind of a man does something like that--
cheats our soldiers while they are on Active Duty? The model Mr. 
Mnuchin developed for OneWest was terrible for homeowners, but it was 
fabulous for him. Six years after buying the bank, he sold it and 
reportedly pocketed as much as $200 million in personal profit--$200 
million for 6 years of throwing families out of their homes--wow, only 
on Wall Street.
  Mr. Mnuchin's leadership of OneWest is critical to evaluating his 
fitness to serve as Treasury Secretary. That is why I joined 24 other 
Democratic Senators in asking Chairman Hatch of the Senate Finance 
Committee to include some of Mr. Mnuchin's foreclosure victims as 
witnesses at Mr. Mnuchin's hearing.
  The chairman refused. So Democrats invited some of those homeowners 
to come to the Senate anyway to share their stories at a forum. We 
invited every Senator--Democrat or Republican--to attend the forum. We 
also invited Mr. Mnuchin to attend. Not one single Republican showed 
up--not one. Mr. Mnuchin refused to attend. But Senate Democrats turned 
out to listen. The stories that we heard will break your heart.
  We heard from Colleen Ison-Hodroff, from Minneapolis, MN. Colleen is 
84 years old. She and her husband Monroe got a reverse mortgage on 
their fully paid-off home from Financial Freedom, which is a OneWest 
subsidiary. At the time, the broker assured them that Colleen could 
keep living in her home even if her husband passed away before she did. 
But just days--just days--after Monroe's funeral, Mr. Mnuchin's bank 
told her she needed to pay off the entire loan or face foreclosure. She 
has been fighting them off for 2 years now, but the threat hangs over 
her and her family.
  Sylvia Oliver from Scotch Plains, NJ, also told us her story. She had 
been trying for years to get a loan modification from OneWest. For 
years, the bank refused to work with her in good faith. Sylvia choked 
up as she described how she felt when her young daughter told her: Mom, 
I love our home. She had to smile and look her daughter in the eye, not 
knowing whether they could keep that home for more than even a few more 
weeks.
  We heard from Cristina Clifford, from Carlsbad, CA. Cristina is a 
real go-getter, a self-employed small business owner who saved up 
enough money to buy her first home soon after she turned 20. When the 
financial crisis hit, the income from her business dried up, and she 
reached out to Mr. Mnuchin's bank for a modification. But when she sent 
in her modification paperwork, along with the check for her first new 
payment, she sent them in a single envelope, and Mr. Mnuchin's bank 
claimed they had never received the paperwork even though they cashed 
the check that was in the same envelope.
  Ultimately, Mr. Mnuchin's bank foreclosed on Cristina, just days 
after an employee personally had assured her that she could still work 
out a modification to keep her home. But she lost her home.
  We also heard from Heather McCreary, a mother of twin boys from 
Sparks, NV. Like a lot of families, Heather and her husband Jack were 
hit hard in the financial crisis. She lost her job as a home health 
aide, and Jack, who worked construction, got fewer hours and lower 
wages. Heather and Jack applied to OneWest for a modification. They did 
everything they were told. But it did not matter to Mr. Mnuchin and his 
friends at OneWest.
  The bank strung them along for years and then, in the blink of an 
eye, foreclosed so abruptly that it literally put Heather, her husband 
Jack, and their twin boys out on the street.
  All four of these women begged the Senate to reject Mr. Mnuchin's 
nomination. Heather said:

       Putting Steve Mnuchin in charge of the country's financial 
     system is an insult to families like mine, families who 
     worked hard and did everything they could to get by after the 
     economy collapsed. Take it from my experience, I know he will 
     not be looking out for working people. Instead, he will use 
     his position to make the economy work better for people like 
     himself.

  No track record of independence from Wall Street, a history of 
profiting off the financial crisis by squeezing working families to the 
breaking point--each one of those should be disqualifying to serve as 
Treasury Secretary. That should be the end of his nomination. We should 
be done with this. But there is more.
  During Mr. Mnuchin's nomination process, he flat-out lied to the 
Senate. Senator Casey from Pennsylvania asked Mr. Mnuchin a 
straightforward factual question about foreclosure abuses at OneWest. 
Mr. Mnuchin claimed they did not happen. That is not even a good lie. 
Within days, reporters found court documents contradicting Mr. 
Mnuchin's claim. You know, something like that should not be a partisan 
issue. A person who lies to Congress should not be the country's top 
economic official--period, done.
  But when Senate Democrats demanded that Mr. Mnuchin come before the 
Finance Committee again to account for his statement, Republicans on 
the committee unilaterally changed the rules and rammed Mr. Mnuchin's 
nomination through without a single Democrat present.
  Do Senate Republicans care about Mr. Mnuchin's lies?
  The American people should.
  If Mr. Mnuchin is willing to lie about something that is so easily 
disproved by public court documents, what else is he willing to lie 
about? How can Congress or the American people believe him ever again?
  We know Mr. Mnuchin has the full support of Wall Street. The big bank 
lobbyists, Mr. Mnuchin's hedge fund pals, man, they want to see him 
confirmed. They are lobbying hard. They know he will help out his old 
buddies and give them all the financial rule rollbacks and sweetheart 
deals that they want. What we know is that is usually enough to carry 
the day around here.
  But me? I am going with Colleen and Heather and Sylvia and Cristina. 
I heard what Mr. Mnuchin and his bank did to them and to thousands more 
like them in Massachusetts and all across the country. The U.S. Senate 
should not reward that kind of sleazy, cruel, and sometimes illegal 
conduct by making him the Secretary of Treasury.
  We cannot say to the millions of people who lost their homes, who 
lost their jobs, who lost their savings during the financial crisis, 
that a man like Mr. Mnuchin will be entrusted with the keys to our 
Treasury. We cannot say to the American people that someone who lied to 
Congress--who lied and didn't even have to come back and explain his 
lie--can become a senior Cabinet official.
  A lot of people believed Donald Trump when he said he would be tough 
on Wall Street. A lot of people voted for him because of that promise. 
By hiring half of Goldman Sachs to run the economy, Donald Trump has 
made clear he has no intention of keeping his promise. And now, with 
the vote on Mr. Mnuchin, the American public will have the chance to 
see whether Senate Republicans are serious about keeping Wall Street in 
line too.
  Don't hold your breath, America. I will be voting no on Mr. Mnuchin's 
nomination, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.
  I want to read some of the stories that we have about Mr. Mnuchin's 
time at OneWest. You know, you don't have to take this just from me. I 
may be the one speaking here today, but it is the voices of Colleen and 
Heather and Sylvia and Cristina and thousands of others whose lives 
were ruined by Steve Mnuchin's aggressive foreclosure tactics that 
really deserve to be heard.
  I have already told you about Colleen Ison-Hodroff, the 84-year-old 
woman who is getting cheated out of her home, her home that she lived 
in for over 50 years and that was fully paid off. She is getting 
cheated out of that home by Steve Mnuchin's bank.
  Now what I would like to do is to share her full story in her own 
words. This is what she had to say:

       My name is Colleen Ison-Hodroff. I am 84 years old. I am a 
     resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota. My husband Monroe Hodroff 
     and I purchased our home located at 2753 Ewing Avenue in 1963 
     as a home for our family of six children. They called us the 
     Brady Bunch of Ewing Avenue. Our house was the heart and soul 
     of our family. Monroe and I were married for 55 years, and we 
     successfully ran four small grocery stores. I would like to 
     thank you all very much for allowing me to share my story.
       I am here today because Financial Freedom, my reverse 
     mortgage servicer, is trying to foreclose on my home. This is 
     despite the fact that when my husband Monroe and I took out 
     this loan, they told us that I could

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     remain in the home if Monroe should die before me.
       In July of 2006, my husband and I decided to take out a 
     reverse mortgage loan with Financial Freedom. It was a very 
     complicated process. Someone came to our house and I was 
     asked to sign a number of papers. Usually, Monroe handled the 
     financial matters for our household. We were told that I 
     could live in the house if Monroe passed away. It was never 
     Monroe's or my intention that the survivor of the two of us 
     would have to sell the house or leave if one of us died. We 
     would not have signed for the loan if we thought that was the 
     case.
       My husband Monroe passed on September 12, 2014. A mere 10 
     days later, despite what we had been told, Financial Freedom 
     contacted me and told me that I needed to pay off the loan 
     immediately. This was news to me. I was in no financial 
     position to do so. Since then, Financial Freedom has been 
     trying to foreclose on me. I think this is an injustice in 
     that an elderly woman was deceived, and now Financial Freedom 
     is trying to take my home. Why would Financial Freedom do 
     this to me? I relied on what I was told, and now they are 
     trying to kick me out of our family home.
       How was I supposed to know if what I was told wasn't true? 
     What am I supposed to do now?
       My understanding is that in such circumstances, Financial 
     Freedom blames HUD for it kicking out Non-Borrowing Spouses. 
     Experts who have reviewed my paperwork have told me that this 
     isn't even a HUD-backed loan, so Financial Freedom has no one 
     to blame but themselves. It seems Financial Freedom should be 
     working to keep people like me in their homes, and not 
     fighting to kick us out.
       I hear that Steve Mnuchin was a leader of the bank that is 
     doing this to me and other seniors. I do not think a man like 
     that should be the Treasury Secretary and in charge of our 
     economy. We can't let that happen. Thank you again for 
     allowing me to tell my story on behalf of those who have had 
     bad dealings with Financial Freedom and OneWest.

  Thank you, Colleen. I appreciate you telling your story.
  I also talked about Heather McCreary, her husband, and her twin boys, 
and how her family was left out on the street because of the greed of 
Steve Mnuchin and OneWest Bank.
  Heather courageously shared her story with us, and here is what she 
said:

       My name is Heather McCreary. My husband Jack, my two kids 
     Jaden and Clara, and I are from Sparks, Nevada. This is my 
     story about how my family's American Dream turned into a 
     nightmare. I'm sharing my story with the hope of explaining 
     why we cannot let Steve Mnuchin become Secretary of the 
     Treasury. Putting Steve Mnuchin in charge of the Treasury 
     Department would mean that a man who profited off the 
     struggles of families like mine would be one of the most 
     powerful people in the U.S. economy.
       For a while, it was looking like our shot at the American 
     Dream was going pretty well. In 2006, Jack and I bought our 
     dream home in Sparks--just a mile away from my parents, and a 
     short walk to Jaden and Clara's school and to parks the kids 
     could play in. I was working as a home health care worker and 
     Jack was working in construction, and together we were 
     managing just fine.
       Then, in 2008, when the economy started to get worse, I was 
     laid off. The following year in 2009, Jack was laid off too. 
     Though Jack was able to find another job pretty fast, he had 
     to take a big pay cut--from about $25 an hour to $8.50 an 
     hour. Between the cut in Jack's pay and the loss in income I 
     experienced when going on unemployment insurance benefits 
     after I got laid off, we were pinched and we were drowning 
     financially. However, we were determined to keep our dream 
     home, so Jack and I were tenacious about doing whatever we 
     could to get help. We sought help from the Hope Now Alliance, 
     which is an alliance of HUD-approved counselors who provide 
     free foreclosure help, and from the Washoe County Senior Law 
     Project. We worked side-by-side with both organizations to do 
     everything required of us by our mortgage servicer IndyMac, 
     which later became OneWest.
       When we first asked for help, OneWest gave us a short 
     forbearance and allowed us to make a smaller payment for 
     several months with the goal of a reduction in our monthly 
     mortgage payments through the Home Affordable Modification 
     Program (or HAMP). By applying for the HAMP program, we 
     thought we were back on the road to keeping our home. We 
     complied 100 percent with OneWest's requirements for HAMP--we 
     were incredibly nervous about being able to keep our house, 
     so we were extremely careful to make sure we did everything 
     we could to keep the process going forward. Our application 
     for HAMP was processed and we were approved for a 
     modification. I sent in the signed paperwork and the first 
     payment under the modified payment amount.
       But then the process started to fall apart.
       After a whole 30 days, OneWest returned our personal check 
     and told us that only certified checks would be accepted, so 
     they were now voiding the modification offer. We had followed 
     the instructions to the letter on OneWest's paperwork, 
     crossing our ``T''s and dotting our ``I''s. But in the end, 
     this didn't matter--and OneWest's rejection of our HAMP 
     application put us on the road to foreclosure.
       We applied two more times for loan modifications over the 
     next six months because we were given assurances by people at 
     OneWest that they would approve our application. We again 
     complied with every request OneWest made of us, taking care 
     to send in extra documents whenever OneWest requested them. 
     But as far as I can tell, OneWest never attempted to process 
     the loan modification.
       The foreclosure went through and we lost our home on 
     September 10, 2010. The foreclosure left us without a home, 
     and finding a new rental was extremely difficult because of 
     our credit. Juggling the demands of raising our twins and 
     this was so hard--the foreclosure even meant that our kids 
     had to miss school. Eventually we did find a new place, but 
     we had to pay an outrageous rent--even though it was not a 
     good home for us at all. It's hard to explain the shame, 
     embarrassment, and grief that Jack and I felt.
       I've cried a river of tears over this. I really didn't 
     think we were asking too much: we wanted to hang onto our 
     home for the sake of our kids, and we did everything we could 
     to stay in our home. And while I will probably never know 
     exactly what OneWest did, the outcome of my story proves that 
     Steve Mnuchin's company had no interest in helping us. They 
     wanted to foreclose because they were focused on their 
     profits. Putting Steve Mnuchin in charge of the country's 
     financial system is an insult to families like mine: families 
     who worked hard and did everything they could to get by after 
     the economy collapsed.
       Take it from my experience--I know he will not be looking 
     out for working people. Instead, he will use his position to 
     make the economy work better for people like himself. On 
     behalf of my family and others like it, I ask you to please 
     reject Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary.

  Thank you, Heather, for sending in your letter. I appreciate it.
  And remember Sylvia? She and her family are facing foreclosure later 
this month, yet she still came all the way to Washington to stop the 
Senate from putting Steve Mnuchin in a position to harm millions of 
others.
  Sylvia told us her story, and this is what she said:

       My name is Sylvia Oliver, I am a homeowner from Scotch 
     Plains, New Jersey. I got my mortgage from IndyMac in May 
     2008, and about a month later, IndyMac failed. I want to 
     share my story because it is more than a house--it is a home 
     for me, my husband, and my three children and my 
     grandchildren.
       In early 2009, my husband and I were facing financial 
     difficulties. Because of the economy being in bad shape, my 
     husband was between jobs. We reached out to OneWest to 
     request a modification. We were told that we had to make 
     three payments in order to move forward on a permanent 
     modification, and so we made those three payments. After 
     making those payments, I reached back out to OneWest to find 
     out what the next steps were. But I couldn't get a straight 
     answer from them, so we continued making partial payments, 
     even though it was a challenge for us financially.
       In February 2010, I submitted a modification application to 
     OneWest Bank. About six weeks later I received a Notice of 
     Intent to Foreclose. However, the person I had been talking 
     to at OneWest, a man named Albert, told me not to worry, and 
     encouraged me to continue submitting updated documents to the 
     bank. So, for the next year, I would submit new documents to 
     the bank, through FedEx and through faxes. And, every week, I 
     would call Albert and ask if he had an update on my 
     situation, and every week I was told there was no answer and 
     to call back the next week.
       After a year of my weekly phone calls, I finally a received 
     a denial letter from OneWest in February 2011, when they said 
     they couldn't modify my loan.
       Albert at OneWest told me I could reapply for a 
     modification, which I did, because I really wanted to keep 
     our home.
       For the next several months, the cycle would repeat with 
     the bank telling me to reapply for a modification, me 
     believing that they were sincere, and then a few months later 
     being told that we had been declined again. This was 
     surprising, because during this time we were back on our feet 
     and our incomes were both increasing, which meant we were in 
     a better position to pay for our mortgage.
       At the end of 2015, I received another notice of 
     foreclosure from the bank. At this point it became clear to 
     me that OneWest never had any intention of modifying the loan 
     in such a way that they would still get paid back and we 
     would be able to keep our home.
       In March of 2016, I hired a lawyer because I thought they 
     might have more success in working with the bank than I did. 
     At my attorney's advice, I filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy as 
     part of another modification application. That process went 
     on for about five or six months, with the same cycle of me 
     sending paperwork over and over to the bank, and the same 
     answer again.
       Last year I was facing foreclosure three weeks before 
     Christmas. However, that was then postponed until this month. 
     In fact, I was supposed to be foreclosed on by OneWest 
     today--

  That is the day she came to Washington--


[[Page S1080]]


  

     however, after Senator Menendez's office called OneWest, I 
     learned that my sale had been postponed at least until next 
     month.
       Earlier this month, I sought help from a HUD approved 
     housing counselor. She worked with me and my husband to 
     document our income and to submit a modification application. 
     After analyzing the situation, she was surprised to hear that 
     we had not qualified for a modification earlier, especially 
     since my husband and I both had good incomes.
       As of right now, I am still facing foreclosure next month--

  That would be February--

     and I know in my heart this is because OneWest's only intent 
     was to foreclose on my home.
       This bank has had ample opportunities to modify my loan. In 
     fact, they told me that they own the loan, so I know they 
     can't blame the situation on an investor not allowing them to 
     modify my loan. Nobody should have to go through the 
     experience that I have gone through during the past several 
     years with OneWest Bank. It has been very painful and 
     stressful not knowing if my kids and my family were going to 
     have a home to live in or if it is going to be foreclosed on.
       I would ask you to remember my experience when you consider 
     whether Mr. Mnuchin is qualified to lead the Department of 
     the Treasury. As the CEO and Chair of OneWest Bank, Mr. 
     Mnuchin had the opportunity to help families like mine with 
     responsible loan modification, and he didn't. I don't think 
     this is a track record that anybody should be proud of.

  Thank you, Sylvia for telling your story.
  Then there is Cristina, a small business owner who owned her own home 
at the age of 20. I already told you about how Steve Mnuchin's bank ran 
her in circles until they could foreclose on her house. But now I want 
you to hear the full story from Cristina. Here is what she said:

       Good afternoon. My name is Cristina Clifford. I'm hoping 
     that by sharing my story today I can explain why I believe 
     confirming Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary would be a 
     serious mistake for our country. I experienced firsthand what 
     it was like to be subject to OneWest's greed, and I can tell 
     you that the person who ran OneWest Bank should not be the 
     person responsible for oversight of the U.S. economy.
       In 2001, when I was 20, I bought my first home--a great 
     condo in Whittier, California, just outside Los Angeles. I 
     was young, but I've always been a motivated self-starter. I'm 
     also a self-employed, small business owner--my primary source 
     of income. Things were going just fine, and I was never, ever 
     late on my mortgage payments.
       However, that changed in 2008--like it did for so many of 
     us--when the economy took a turn for the worse. My business 
     struggled, and I started relying on credit cards to stay 
     afloat. In March of 2009, I was unable to make my mortgage 
     payment for the first time in eight years as a homeowner. I 
     called OneWest directly to see what options I would have for 
     keeping my home. They told me flat out that because I had 
     never been delinquent, they had no way of helping me.
       In order to get help, they said, I would have to fall 
     behind on my payments. Of course this was misleading--and, 
     I've since found out, a common tactic that mortgage lenders 
     use to push people into default.
       From there, I began the long, long process of loan 
     modification through the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (or 
     HAMP). I sent in numerous documents to OneWest, and in May, I 
     was offered my first loan modification. I was thrilled--the 
     new payments would fit perfectly in my budget, so I signed 
     the loan modification papers and sent them via FedEx along 
     with a check for my first payment under the new, modified 
     payment amount. In July, I expected OneWest to send me a 
     statement with the new lower payment amount. Instead, I 
     received a letter saying that they had not received my loan 
     modification paperwork, so the modification terms were no 
     longer valid. I called them and OneWest confirmed that they 
     had not received my returned loan modification agreement.
       I knew right away this wasn't right, because they had 
     cashed the check for the first modified payment in the same 
     FedEx envelope. That they managed to cash the check but 
     completely neglect the loan modification agreement--again, in 
     the same envelope--is absolutely outrageous.
       I had no choice but to apply again, this time submitting 
     even more documents; I was told to submit and resubmit many 
     duplicative documents in many different formats. Despite how 
     difficult OneWest made the process, I did everything they 
     asked because I was determined to keep my home. On August 3, 
     2009, I received a notice of default from OneWest but 
     proceeded with my second attempt at modifying my loan. I 
     received my second loan modification offer later that month. 
     The terms were almost identical to the offer they made me in 
     May, so I quickly signed the offer and mailed it in with 
     another check.
       In October, I got a letter exactly like the one I received 
     earlier saying that they had not received the loan 
     modification paperwork and that the modification offer was no 
     longer valid. Yet as they did the first time, they cashed the 
     check I sent with the signed offer.
       At this point, I felt I had no choice but to get an 
     attorney, who worked to get my foreclosure postponed while 
     the loan modification process played out. He spoke with 
     people at OneWest who told him that they would postpone the 
     sale of my condo until the loan modification process was 
     completed.
       This simply wasn't true: on the evening of December 3, 
     2009, I received a knock on my door from a man that 
     introduced himself as the new owner of my property. And in 
     March of 2010, I received a final notice telling me that I 
     had five days to leave my apartment--five days to pack up the 
     ten years of my life I'd spent in my home.
       The reason I am sharing my story is because there are so 
     many other people out there like me who got left in the dust. 
     Steve Mnuchin profited from people like me, even when we did 
     everything we could to keep our homes. You might say that 
     Steve Mnuchin did not personally authorize OneWest to cheat 
     me out of my home, but his fortune rose as a direct result of 
     managing a company that routinely engaged in irresponsible 
     behavior.
       The Treasury Secretary will be tasked with making sure the 
     economy is working in a way that benefits all of Americans, 
     not just the top 1 percent. However, Steve Mnuchin is not 
     that person; he is just the opposite. Please make a statement 
     for people like me and oppose his confirmation as Treasury 
     Secretary.

  Thank you, Cristina. Thank you for coming to Washington. Thank you 
for submitting your story.
  Now these are just four stories--four experiences--among the 
thousands more like them, all leading to the same simple but startling 
conclusion: Under Steve Mnuchin's leadership, OneWest Bank took 
advantage of homeowners all across the country in the immediate 
aftermath of the financial crisis. And why did they do it? They did it 
to make a quick buck.
  But don't just take my word for it. Paulina Gonzalez, the Executive 
Director for the California Reinvestment Coalition also came to 
Washington to speak to us. Paulina and her organization have been 
closely tracking OneWest's destructive practices for years. Here is 
what Paulina told us:

       My name is Paulina Gonzalez. I am the Executive Director of 
     the California Reinvestment Coalition. Over the past 30 
     years, CRC has grown to the largest state reinvestment 
     coalition in the country with a membership of 300 
     organizations that serve low-income communities and community 
     of color.
       It is critically important that our elected representatives 
     and the American public hear directly from people who have 
     lost their homes due to the egregious practices by OneWest 
     under Mr. Mnuchin's leadership, before deciding on his 
     nomination to the high and important office of Treasury 
     Secretary.
       I'm going to share some data and information with you in 
     the next few minutes, but know that the wreckage from OneWest 
     is not really about numbers, data, and legal briefs. It's 
     about the tens of thousands of Americans who have suffered 
     devastating personal and financial losses as a result of 
     OneWest's abusive foreclosure practices.
       Whether it's the story of the Minnesota woman who sought a 
     loan modification from OneWest and returned to her home in a 
     blizzard only to find that her locks were changed. Or the 90 
     year old woman who was nearly kicked out of her home for 
     mistakenly paying 27 cents less than [the amount] OneWest 
     said she owed. Or the 80 year old former Christian missionary 
     who was notified at his home that Financial Freedom was 
     foreclosing on him because the bank said it had no record of 
     him living there. The issue is the same: instead of helping 
     people stay in their homes, Mr. Mnuchin devised a foreclosure 
     machine that used every trick in the book to profit from 
     their suffering.
       And foreclose he did. CRC and Urban Strategies Council 
     analyzed data showing that OneWest foreclosed on over 36,000 
     families in California and 24,000 families nationally. All of 
     these foreclosures occurred after Mr. Mnuchin purchased 
     IndyMac Bank. In addition, we suspect that OneWest's reverse 
     mortgage subsidiary, Financial Freedom, has foreclosed on 
     more seniors, widows, and widowers, and heirs than any other 
     company participating in the federal Home Equity Conversion 
     Mortgage program. A Freedom of Information Act request that 
     we filed with HUD revealed that Financial Freedom had 
     foreclosed on over 16,000 seniors, widows, widowers, and 
     their families, or 39 % of all Home Equity Conversion 
     Mortgage foreclosures, roughly twice the rate one would 
     expect given the bank's market share.

  I just want to say that one more time. They foreclosed on seniors, on 
widows, on widowers, and on families at about twice the rate of anyone 
else doing the same business.

       Mr. Mnuchin may defend his record by saying he inherited 
     these bad loans, that the foreclosures were inevitable, and 
     that his bank followed the law in dealing with his customers. 
     We strongly disagree, and it appears we are not alone. In a 
     CNN story that aired on January 3rd about Mr. Mnuchin and

[[Page S1081]]

     Financial Freedom, a HUD spokesperson was quoted as saying, 
     ``while HUD doesn't dispute that it has strict rules for 
     government backed reverse mortgages, OneWest had the ability 
     to give survivors more time but chose not to.''
       Mr. Mnuchin's spokespeople have also praised his 
     modification record. But, we are not sure there is much to 
     praise. 2013 data from the Treasury Department shows that 
     OneWest had among the highest denial rates for the Home 
     Affordable Modification Program, [HAMP,] the federal 
     government's main foreclosure prevention effort. Under Mr. 
     Mnuchin, OneWest denied three-quarters of the thousands of 
     loan modification requests that came in from families 
     trying to save their homes. OneWest was much more likely 
     to deny loan modifications under this program than peers, 
     such as Bank of America or Wells Fargo.
       A January 2013 memo from the California Attorney General's 
     office revealed a staff investigation finding of ``widespread 
     misconduct'' at the bank, including backdating thousands of 
     foreclosure documents, improper foreclosure auction credit 
     bidding which meant the bank could claim tax exemptions it 
     wasn't entitled to, proceeding with foreclosures without the 
     proper authority to do so, and speeding up foreclosure 
     timelines. All of these practices deprived working families 
     in California a fair chance to stay in their homes.
       The Treasury Secretary leads our economy. The Secretary 
     helps oversee our banking system and will have much to say 
     about important policies relating to banking, housing, and 
     economic development that will impact all Americans. The 
     country needs a Treasury Secretary who will consider the 
     needs of all Americans, including working class Americans. 
     Mr. Mnuchin's tenure at OneWest Bank shows him to work in his 
     interest and in the corporate interest, at the great expense 
     and harm to everyday Americans.

  Thank you, Paulina. I appreciate your sending in this information, 
and I agree.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Mnuchin's history of oppressive foreclosure 
practices isn't the only thing that disqualifies him from serving as 
Secretary of the Treasury. I already told you that Mr. Mnuchin flat-out 
lied to the Senate when he told my colleague, Senator Casey, that his 
bank didn't engage in certain foreclosure practices. I wish to share an 
article from the Columbus Dispatch uncovering the exact practices Mr. 
Mnuchin told the Senate that his bank never engaged in. The article 
says: ``President Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. treasury secretary 
was untruthful with the Senate during the confirmation process, 
documents uncovered by The Dispatch show.''

       Steve Mnuchin, former chairman and chief executive officer 
     of OneWest Bank, known for its aggressive foreclosure 
     practices, flatly denied in testimony before the Senate 
     Finance Committee that OneWest used ``robo-signing'' on 
     mortgage documents.
       But records show the bank utilized the questionable 
     practice in Ohio.
       ``This guy is just lying. There's no other way to say it,'' 
     said Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on 
     Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.
       The revelation comes with the committee's vote on whether 
     to confirm Mnuchin's nomination, currently scheduled for 
     Monday night.
       ``Robo-signing'' is the informal term for when a mortgage 
     company employee signs hundreds of foreclosures, swearing 
     they have scrutinized the document as required by law when in 
     fact they have not.
       ``OneWest Bank did not `robo-sign' documents,'' Mnuchin 
     wrote in response to questions from individual Senators, 
     ``and as the only bank to successfully complete the 
     Independent Foreclosure Review required by federal banking 
     regulators to investigate allegations of `robo-signing,' I am 
     proud of our institution's extremely low error rate.''

  I just want to read that one more time. Steve Mnuchin said: ``OneWest 
Bank did not `robo-sign' documents.'' And he is proud of what he did.
  But a Dispatch analysis of nearly four dozen foreclosure cases filed 
by OneWest in Franklin County in 2010 alone shows that the company 
frequently used robo-signers. The vast majority of the Columbus-area 
cases were signed by 11 different people in Travis County, Texas. Those 
employees called themselves vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, 
managers and assistant secretaries. In three local cases, a judge 
dismissed OneWest foreclosure proceedings specifically based on 
inaccurate robo-signings.

       The Dispatch found more than 1,900 OneWest foreclosures in 
     the state's six largest counties from 2009 to 2015.
       Carla Duncan, a social worker from Cleveland Heights, was 
     snared by OneWest's robo-signing machinery.
       On her way out of town for a short trip in 2010, Duncan 
     stopped by her home to get her mail and found a note from a 
     field inspector for her mortgage company, saying that her 
     house was vacant and was going to be boarded up.
       ``It wasn't vacant, I was living there,'' Duncan said. 
     ``There were curtains on the windows. The radio was playing 
     and the dog was there.''
       What Duncan didn't know at the time was that OneWest had 
     begun foreclosure proceedings on her three-bedroom home even 
     though she was up-to-date on her payments. OneWest refused to 
     accept a loan modification approved by a previous lender that 
     had been purchased by OneWest, and it wanted to substantially 
     increase Duncan's interest rate and monthly payment and add 
     late fees. The company also put a lock box on a separate 
     rental property she owned in Cleveland.
       After hiring former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, waging 
     a five-year court battle and filing personal bankruptcy, 
     Duncan was finally able to get the foreclosures dismissed and 
     keep her home and rental property. She said the experience 
     was devastating.
       ``It got to the point that I was afraid to open my own 
     door.''
       Court records show that Duncan's mortgage was robo-signed 
     by Erica Johnson-Seck, vice president of OneWest's department 
     of bankruptcy and foreclosures. From her office in Austin, 
     Texas, Johnson-Seck robo-signed an average of 750 foreclosure 
     documents a week, according to a sworn deposition she gave in 
     a Florida case in July 2009.
       Under oath, Johnson-Seck acknowledged that she did not read 
     the documents she was signing, taking only about 30 seconds 
     to sign her name. To speed up the process, Johnson-Seck said 
     she shortened her first name in her signature to just ``E.'' 
     In the deposition that OneWest's practice was to review just 
     10 percent of the foreclosure documents for accuracy.
       Dann, who now specializes in representing clients who have 
     problems with banks and other lenders after he was forced to 
     resign as attorney general nearly 10 years ago, said 
     Mnuchin's businesses were a ``major offender'' in problem 
     mortgages. Dann said Mnuchin's firms were known for dual 
     tracking [which means](pursuing foreclosure simultaneously as 
     they allegedly worked with homeowners), fabricating documents 
     and other tactics ``that caused unbelievable devastation in 
     people's lives.''
       In 2010, federal laws were changed, enabling borrowers 
     victimized by lenders to sue them. Dann said he worries that 
     Mnuchin, as treasury secretary, would quietly work to repeal 
     reforms collectively known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street 
     Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
       That appears to be the case.
       ``It has been over six years since the passage of Dodd-
     Frank and it seems like an appropriate time to review all of 
     the regulations from Dodd-Frank to understand their impact on 
     the market, investors, small businesses and economic 
     growth,'' Mnuchin said in a written answer to the Senate.
       The Dispatch analysis showed thousands of Ohio homeowners--
     including 245 in Franklin County--found themselves in 
     OneWest's crosshairs when they defaulted on their loans, the 
     majority of them with high interest rates. Many mortgages had 
     terms that housing and financial experts view as predatory: 
     prepayment penalties, interest-only loans and no-money-down 
     loans.
       Mnuchin was labeled by critics at the time as the 
     ``Foreclosure King.''

  That is it--the ``Foreclosure King.'' That is who is just hours away 
from becoming the chief financial officer of our country.
  Steve Mnuchin is a Wall Street insider who has spent his career 
looking out for himself and his billionaire buddies. He led a bank that 
forced thousands of hardworking Americans out of their homes, and he 
lied to the Senate.
  The Constitution demands that Senators advise and consent on the 
President's nominations. Well, here is my advice: Steve Mnuchin is not 
fit to be Secretary of Treasury.
  He will not look out for the millions of Americans still recovering 
from the recession, like Heather and Cristina. He certainly will not 
defend the interests of middle-class families like the McCrearys and 
the Olivers. And I know he will not stand up to Wall Street and fight 
to protect the interests of all Americans.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose Mr. Mnuchin's nomination.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of 
Steven Mnuchin to be Secretary of the Treasury.
  No Cabinet official can have such a profound impact on our economy, 
on family budgets, on taxes, and on consumer protection as the 
Secretary of the Treasury. It is a job of immense reach that requires a 
steady hand, a commitment to fairness, and a deep

[[Page S1082]]

knowledge of our Nation's financial markets and the rules that protect 
the savings and investments of middle-class Americans. In light of this 
reality, I do not think Mr. Mnuchin meets these requirements.
  I know that for many of my fellow Rhode Islanders and for many 
Americans, the economy is not producing the jobs and wages they want 
and they need. I share that sentiment and have pushed for job and wage 
policies like the minimum wage, paid leave, and health care that help 
struggling families cope. I have pushed for job creation by putting 
people to work by rebuilding our Nation's roads, bridges, transit 
systems, schools, and new housing. But I think it is important that 
everyone in this Chamber take a step back and understand where our 
economy was, where it is today, and what is at stake.
  In 2007, the housing market began to collapse. One measure of the 
housing market is the seriously delinquent rate, which is the 
percentage of loans that are 90 days or more past due or in the process 
of foreclosure. Here are just a few examples of the hardest hit States: 
13.2 percent in Arizona in December 2009, 9.63 percent in Ohio in 
December 2009, and 20.61 percent in Florida in March 2010.
  By the end of President Obama's term in office, here are the 
seriously delinquent rates for those same States: 1.35 percent in 
Arizona in September of 2016, 3.59 percent in Ohio in September of 
2016, and 4.14 percent in Florida in September of 2016. Just to remind 
on this, Florida went from a seriously delinquent rate of over 20 
percent in 2010 to just over 4 percent in 2016 because of the policy, 
the programs that were initiated by the President and supported by this 
Congress.
  In 2007, the unemployment rate began to skyrocket. Again, here is 
what that meant in a few States at their highest unemployment rates: 
11.2 percent in Arizona in November of 2009, 13.6 percent in Nevada in 
December 2010, 11 percent in Ohio in January 2010, 11.2 percent in 
Florida in January 2010, and in my home State, double digit 
unemployment rates also.
  By the end of President Obama's term in office, here are the 
preliminary rates for those states as of December 2016: 4.8 percent in 
Arizona, 5.1 percent in Nevada, 4.9 percent in Ohio, and 4.9 percent in 
Florida. We have seen improvement across the Nation.
  I urge my colleagues to take all of this into account when they 
consider Mr. Mnuchin.
  These are sobering numbers, and behind each of these numbers is an 
individual or a family, our constituents, who suffered real and serious 
harm. We owe it to our constituents to do something so that these 
generational losses will be prevented from happening again. We came out 
of a deep abyss through difficult work, through cooperative efforts; we 
have reached a point where we are poised, I hope, to continue to move 
forward, and we don't want to go back. That was at the heart of our 
work on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. 
It was to learn the lessons from this catastrophe so that we would 
never endure another in our history.
  Unfortunately, for some of my constituents in Rhode Island and others 
around the country, the aftershocks of that financial crisis have not 
fully dissipated. We are still living in some respects with what 
happened. There are still too many looking for a decent-paying job or 
facing gut-wrenching financial decisions like whether to turn the heat 
off or to skip feeding the family another day, just to make ends meet.
  Indeed, one of my constituents recently wrote:

       My wife and I lost nearly half our assets in the 2008 
     financial crisis. Over eight years later, and our house is 
     still worth less than the mortgage that remains on it. We are 
     both professionals, and will have to stay that way until we 
     are 75 in order to come close to the standard of living we 
     enjoy now during retirement. The financial reforms enacted 
     under Dodd Frank, and Obama's regulation that requires 
     financial advisers and brokers to act in their client's best 
     interests, are critical to my family's well-being and to the 
     health of the US economy. I would like to know how you plan 
     to defeat any attempts to unravel these rules. Given the 
     clear threat that Trump poses to our economy, and the losses 
     I have already suffered due to bankers' greed and 
     incompetence, without these rules I feel better off putting 
     my money in my basement and will do exactly that. At least we 
     won't lose half of what we own.

  Those are the words of a professional family in Rhode Island who have 
seen this struggle firsthand, and they ask this question: What are you 
going to do to protect the reforms and the advances we have made that 
have been manifested in the economic statistics that I shared with my 
colleagues?
  As you can see, for this Rhode Islander and for many others, the law 
we put in place to stanch the bleeding and stabilize the financial 
system is a critical help.
  But some have so demonized Dodd-Frank that they would have you 
believe otherwise. That may be why its opponents prefer calling it 
Dodd-Frank instead of its full name, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform 
and Consumer Protection Act, because it is about reforming Wall Street 
and protecting consumers. It is a lot easier to be against something 
called Dodd-Frank than it is to be against Wall Street reform and 
consumer protection. But as my colleagues just heard in my 
constituent's own words, Dodd-Frank is ``critical to my family's well-
being and to the health of the US economy.''
  The question I have to answer as my constituent's Senator is whether 
Mr. Mnuchin will support Dodd-Frank, push efforts to further reform 
Wall Street, and place as his highest priority the protection of 
consumers as our next Treasury Secretary.
  Based on a review of Mr. Mnuchin's record, the answer, to me, is very 
clear: No, he will not.
  As chairman of OneWest Bank, Mr. Mnuchin made a fortune employing 
questionable foreclosure practices that made the financial crisis worse 
for families and seniors. What is particularly worrisome is that 
OneWest engaged in so-called robo-signing, where companies cut crucial 
corners by not properly reviewing or even bothering to read foreclosure 
documents.
  Indeed, according to one news report:

       Erica Johnson-Seck, vice president of OneWest's department 
     of bankruptcy and foreclosures . . . robo-signed an average 
     of 750 foreclosure documents a week, according to a sworn 
     deposition she gave in a Florida case in July 2009 . . . 
     Under oath, Johnson-Seck acknowledged that she did not read 
     the documents she was signing, taking only about 30 seconds 
     to sign her name. To speed up the process, Johnson-Seck said 
     she shortened her first name on her signature to just an 
     ``E.'' She said in the deposition that OneWest's practice was 
     to review just 10 percent of the foreclosure documents for 
     accuracy.

  As part of the confirmation process, when asked whether his company 
engaged in robo-signing, Mr. Mnuchin responded that OneWest did not 
robo-sign documents. However, it is not clear that this was the case, 
and not just because of Ms. Johnson-Seck's deposition. Quoting from a 
Bloomberg article written by one of Rhode Island's finest exports, Joe 
Nocera, who writes: ``But here's the clincher: In 2011, the man who now 
says his bank never robo-signed documents signed a consent order with 
the Office of Thrift Supervision, which had accused it of--you guessed 
it--robo-signing.''

  Disturbingly, Mr. Mnuchin's response on this issue either raises 
troubling questions about his management capabilities or his 
willingness to be forthright, or potentially both.
  Ironically, Mr. Mnuchin's confirmation process mirrors his career in 
at least one way. While the Senate Finance Committee normally requires 
at least one Democratic Senator to be present in order to vote in 
committee on a nominee, the normal rules were suspended so that Mr. 
Mnuchin could be reported out of committee for consideration by the 
full Senate. In other words, the rules were not followed, special 
shortcuts were created for him, and much like the robo-signing that 
occurred at OneWest, Mr. Mnuchin is on the path to robo-confirmation 
without a full and proper vetting by the United States Senate.
  The last thing this body should be doing is robo-stamping Mr. 
Mnuchin's nomination so that he, as Treasury Secretary, can change the 
rules and rig the system in favor of the insiders at the expense of 
working-class Americans who are working overtime just to, in many 
cases, make ends barely meet.
  For example, Mr. Mnuchin has stated that his first priority would be 
enactment of the Trump tax plan. This plan makes deep, unfunded cuts to 
revenue, and roughly half of the reduced tax burden is just for the top 
1 percent, the wealthy, who don't have to worry

[[Page S1083]]

about how much a gallon of milk costs, what it costs to ride the bus or 
fill the gas tank. We have seen what huge tax cuts for the wealthy will 
do to the economy. Just look at the economy in the late 2000s and the 
deficit. The economic plan endorsed by President Trump and Mr. Mnuchin 
will not help the middle class, but will only further skew the economy 
in favor of the wealthy and well-connected and do precious little for 
job growth.
  In addition, the incoming Treasury Secretary will be tasked with 
rolling back the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection 
Act in support of a President who said:

       We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, 
     frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine that have 
     nice businesses, and they can't borrow money. . . . They just 
     can't get any money because the banks just won't let them 
     borrow because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank.

  Indeed, Mr. Mnuchin seems all too eager to assist because he himself 
has said that ``we want to strip back parts of Dodd-Frank that prevent 
banks from lending.''
  We are simply not seeing this, though. According to JPMorgan's chief 
financial officer, Marianne Lake, on an analyst conference call last 
month, ``loan growth remains robust.''
  According to Bloomberg:

       At JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank, core loans increased 10 
     percent to $806.2 billion last year, with gains in every 
     category, including credit cards and wholesale debt. Bank of 
     America Corp.'s total loans climbed 1.1 percent to $906.8 
     billion, while Wells Fargo & Co.'s grew 5.6 percent to $968 
     billion.

  According to the same article, ``banks now have a record $9.1 
trillion of loans outstanding.''
  Based on this, it seems that big bank lending is actually doing well, 
and maybe the reason the President's friends have not gotten loans is 
that they borrowed too much and possibly have gone bankrupt too much, 
and the megabanks want to be careful about whom they lend to.
  Indeed, Anat Admati, a finance professor at Stanford University and a 
member of the FDIC's Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee, notes 
that:

       The claim that regulations are prohibiting lending is 
     simply false. . . . The banks have plenty of money and can 
     raise more from investors like other businesses if they have 
     worthy loans to make. If they don't lend, it's because they 
     choose not to lend and instead do many other things.

  This is a key point. According to Bloomberg:

       Banks don't actually ``hold'' capital. In banking, capital 
     refers to the funding they receive from shareholders. Every 
     penny of it can be loaned out. A 5 percent minimum capital 
     requirement means that 5 percent of the bank's liabilities 
     has to be equity, while the rest can be deposits or other 
     borrowing. The more equity a bank has, the smaller its risk 
     of failing when losses pile up.

  Given the protection that equity provides, you are left to wonder why 
Mr. Mnuchin and President Trump are so anti-capital.
  Indeed, from that same Bloomberg article:

       Former Goldman Sachs partner Phillip D. Murphy, who was a 
     member of the banks' management committee with [National 
     Economic Council Director Gary] Cohn and Treasury Secretary 
     nominee Steven Mnuchin, said he's mystified with the changes 
     they're pushing. ``To think that undoing those regulations is 
     going to lead to a better result is folly,'' said Murphy, 
     who's seeking the Democratic nomination in this year's 
     gubernatorial race. ``The fox is in the hen house, that's 
     what this is. This is people on Wall Street who should know 
     better.''

  For an administration that campaigned on a claim of dismantling a 
rigged system, I am confused why President Trump nominated Mr. Mnuchin 
to be his economic quarterback for working-class America. Mr. Mnuchin 
has spent his professional life spotting value, and he has done quite 
well for himself. But despite this ability to value assets, Mr. Mnuchin 
still seems puzzled about how to value the assets that matter most to 
working class Americans. My constituents don't need fancy Wall Street 
calculators or formulas to understand that there is a value and a 
benefit to reforming Wall Street and keeping reckless greed in check. 
There is a value and a benefit to protecting consumers and their hard-
earned wages. And there is a value and a benefit to keeping a family in 
their home and avoiding foreclosure.
  Indeed, an individual who made his fortune aggressively foreclosing 
on his fellow Americans does not possess the right values, in my view, 
to be our Treasury Secretary.
  Based on his record, I am not convinced Mr. Mnuchin is capable of 
draining the swamp, and I fear he may end up further rigging the system 
in favor of the 1 percent at the expense of working class 
Americans. For all of these reasons, I do not support Mr. Mnuchin's 
nomination, and I urge all my colleagues to join me in voting no.

  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to yield the remainder of my time to Senator Wyden of Oregon.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, American families, hard-working American 
families need a Treasury Secretary who will work for them, not for Wall 
Street. Remember the tenor of the 2016 campaign, when candidate Trump, 
at every rally, spoke forcefully about draining the swamp. What we 
thought he meant was that he would drain the swamp, that he would not 
be hiring a whole bunch of Wall Street executives, Goldman Sachs 
employees, and other bankers who helped drive the economy into a ditch; 
that he would actually stay away from them.
  In fact, we have seen the opposite. It has become obvious that the 
Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin is not about hard-working 
American families, but he is about working for Wall Street. The 
Treasury Secretary has enormous influence over Americans' lives, 
impacting everything from their taxes to their mortgages to their 
retirement.
  Mr. Mnuchin doesn't have a policy background to give us clues as to 
what he would do with his power. He was a major Trump fundraiser. Here 
is what we do know. He made millions as a hedge fund manager. He made 
millions at Goldman Sachs, where he traded mortgage securities and 
other products that contributed to the financial crisis. He headed what 
has been called a foreclosure machine, profiting in kicking hard-
working Americans out of their homes.
  When presented with tough questions from members of the Finance 
Committee in front of which he appeared, Mr. Mnuchin expected leniency 
and understanding from a bunch of Senators, but it is not something 
that he gave--leniency and understanding for Ohio families trying to 
keep a roof over their heads. They got the runaround from lenders with 
claims of lost documents, modifications that weren't honored, dual 
tracking. When this confirmation process began, we believe that Mr. 
Mnuchin and his bank, OneWest, had foreclosed on at least 40,000 people 
in three States. We understand--not because of information that he was 
willing, voluntarily at the beginning to provide--we understand now 
that it is at least eight States, and I expect we will learn more.
  Unfortunately, he probably will be Treasury Secretary by the time a 
lot of this comes out because the Finance Committee didn't do its job, 
because Mr. Mnuchin wasn't forthcoming enough, because this Senate is 
trying to rush through ethically challenged candidates to be 
Secretaries of HHS, the EPA, Education, State, and Treasury.
  OneWest's regulator, the regulator from Mr. Mnuchin's bank when he 
was CEO--they had shoddy mortgage practices, the regulator said. They 
foreclosed on more than 10,000 borrowers, including some who were 
current on their mortgage.
  I want to put a picture up on one of the borrowers who was foreclosed 
on not far from where I live. The ZIP Code I live in, in Cleveland, OH, 
had the

[[Page S1084]]

highest in 2007--the first half of that year, had more foreclosures 
than any ZIP Code in the United States. To a bunch of U.S. Senators, 
that is a little troubling. A lot of foreclosures, terrible thing. But 
most U.S. Senators have probably never been foreclosed on, and I am 
guessing most U.S. Senators have never spent a lot of time socially 
with people who are foreclosed on. And I am guessing a whole lot of 
Senators have probably never even talked in detail about what it means 
to be foreclosed on.
  Think about it. Your family is struggling. Your family lives in a 
home in Slavic Village, OH, a mile north of my House. And you have been 
working hard, you and your spouse. The parents have worked hard. The 
kids are teenagers--the challenges that all families have. They are 
making moderate incomes. The wife has her hours cut back. Then they are 
struggling. They have trouble paying their mortgage. They keep paying 
it. Then the husband has his plant closed. And in some cases, in this 
lady's case--I will talk about her in a moment--she was foreclosed on, 
not even because she lost a job. She was foreclosed on because of what 
Mr. Mnuchin said.
  When we talk about foreclosures, we ought to think about what happens 
to these families. The wife maybe has hours cut back, the husband loses 
his job because the plant closes. Then what happens? They go to the 
kids and say: We have to get rid of our pet because pets cost money 
going to the vet, buying food, putting them for a weekend or day 
somewhere. They have to take the animal for somebody else to watch. So 
they give a pet away, which is heartbreaking to kids and to parents. 
Then they have to cut back on other things. Then they realize they are 
about to be foreclosed on or evicted. Then they have to move. They 
bring their son and daughter, 12 and 14 years old, in and they say: We 
don't know what school district you are going to be in. We don't know 
where you are going. We don't know if you will be around your friends 
because we are moving--all those things where their lives turn upside 
down. They lose many of their possessions. Their children's lives are 
so different. Their lives are turned upside down.
  That is why what Mr. Mnuchin did on these 40,000 foreclosures is 
morally repugnant and outrageous. Yet this Senate is only 3 days away 
from party-line voting for this incredibly ethically challenged 
Secretary of the Treasury. Why? I guess listening to my Republican 
friends here, a number of them suggest they really don't much like this 
nominee. They didn't much like Secretary Price, a guy who did 
everything but sell stocks on the floor of the House--bought and sold 
health care stocks while he was working on health care legislation for 
those companies. They didn't much like voting for him. And a number of 
them wanted to vote against the Secretary of Education because she was 
maybe just the least qualified, as the Presiding Officer knows. She may 
be the least qualified Secretary of Education who has ever been 
nominated, but they voted for these people. Why? Because they are 
fearful. They are fearful of what Donald Trump will try to do to 
destroy their careers. You know how they know that? Because the 
Republican conference that meets every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 
in this room right behind this door--the Republican conference--there 
are three Members of the Republican conference, of the 52 Senators, who 
ran for President against Donald Trump. They are Senators Graham, Rubio 
and Cruz. All three of them were targets of Donald Trump, of Candidate 
Donald Trump. He insulted them, called them names, turned his 
supporters on them. The other--52 minus 3--the other 49 Senators know 
it can happen to them. That is why you are seeing these party-line 
votes for people as ethically challenged as Steve Mnuchin, for people 
who have, frankly, betrayed what trust they should have had working for 
a bank the way they did.

  As I said, a OneWest regulator said his bank foreclosed on more than 
10,000 borrowers. When I said 40,000, I misspoke. We know it was 40,000 
in three States. A number of them--the OneWest regulator said something 
different, a smaller number that dealt with shoddy mortgage practices.
  But whatever the number is here, it is in the tens of thousands. 
Think about that. Some of these were not even families who were 
struggling to keep their homes. These families were doing everything 
right. They paid their mortgages on time. His bank came and took their 
houses away because he could make more money. He did not care about 
these people losing their homes.
  If he did not care as a banker about people losing their homes, do 
you think he is going to care much as Treasury Secretary about people 
losing their homes? Do you think he will all of a sudden develop an 
empathy for moderate-income people who lose their homes?
  He did not have it when he was a banker making millions of dollars. 
One of the things that is amazing is that he came in front of our 
committee. You know, these gazillionaires, billionaires, whatever, who 
come in front of our committees have to disclose their wealth and tell 
us who they are and what they are.
  When Secretary-designee Mnuchin came in front of the committee--get 
this. I know I can't talk directly to people in the gallery, but I am 
guessing this would not have happened to them. He forgot to disclose 
that he had a $100 million investment somewhere. He forgot about $100 
million. I am guessing that nobody in this gallery, probably nobody on 
the floor, certainly no staff people back here because I know what they 
are paid--none of them would forget that they had a $100 million 
investment. Maybe he just did not want to tell us about this $100 
million investment any more than he wanted to tell us about those robo-
signings that I will talk about in a minute.
  The report that I mentioned from the regulators said that Mr. 
Mnuchin's bank violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act by 
initiating foreclosure on 54 Active Duty military families. So, I mean, 
maybe that is worse; maybe it is not. I think it is probably even worse 
to foreclose on people who generally did not do anything wrong, but 
then he foreclosed on men and women in uniform, and put them out of 
their homes to pad his own bank's profits.
  I would assume some of these people in the military he foreclosed on 
might have just been stationed overseas, protecting Mr. Mnuchin and his 
family, protecting me, protecting Erin and my staff, and Graham and 
Gideon and others; that is what they do in the military. He foreclosed 
on them. So, again, he had no empathy for these men and women in the 
service. What? He is going to care about these men and women when he is 
Treasury Secretary?
  We now know this foreclosure was even worse than we initially 
thought. Around the time of the hearing, the Columbus Dispatch, Ohio's 
most conservative newspaper, a newspaper that always likes Republicans 
and rarely likes people like me--the Columbus Dispatch ran a front-page 
investigative story that found that OneWest used robo-signings in 
mortgage documents with abandon.
  This, despite the fact that Mr. Mnuchin claimed in testimony before 
the Senate Finance Committee that his company had never done so--if you 
are the CEO making tens of millions of dollars a year, would you not 
know they did robo-signings? Wouldn't you know that they just had staff 
that signed, signed, signed without looking at these documents, 
spending an average of less than 1 minute on each document?
  So you are going approve a document which might have to do with a 
loan to someone, and you did not even spend--as the bank, you did not 
even spend 60 seconds looking at this. Why? Because all of the profits 
were generated by volume. Quality did not matter. All the profits for 
this bank--or much of the profits--were generated by volume.
  Ohio reporters found dozens of foreclosure cases in Franklin County 
alone--Columbus--that had been robo-signed. Yes, Mr. Mnuchin, in this 
town nobody wants to use the word I am going to use. They want to say 
that it was a half-truth or it was not quite right or it was 
fabricated. No, what Mr. Mnuchin did is lie. He said: We did not do 
robo-signings.
  Well, the Columbus Dispatch--this was up there a moment ago--the 
Columbus Dispatch said he did. He lied. They say it more nicely, 
perhaps: Mnuchin's denials don't match the record. He lied.

[[Page S1085]]

  Again, his lying was not just lying. It was what he lied about, and 
people lost their homes as a result.
  Bill Faith, one of Ohio's and America's housing advocates told the 
Dispatch, ``The guy is just lying. There is no other way to say it.''
  The guy is just lying. Since the Dispatch ran the article--this 
article--they have continued to report additional findings. Other 
reporters in other cities have uncovered more instances of robo-
signings by Mr. Mnuchin's bank.
  I am especially concerned about his defensiveness and outright 
deception when asked about this. His misconduct caused real, serious 
pain. That is fundamentally the big issue. It is bad that he lied to a 
bunch of Senators. OK. That is maybe not that big a deal. It is, but it 
isn't. It is bad that he lied to the American public, but he lied about 
something that resulted in people getting evicted, foreclosed on, 
thrown out of their homes--people with families, people serving in the 
Armed Forces. That is not enough reason for any Republican--not one 
Republican--to vote against him? Not one Republican?
  I would like some of my colleagues to meet some of these people who 
were foreclosed on and have them explain to them why they are voting 
for Mr. Mnuchin. Is it because of fear that Donald Trump might call 
them out and call them a name and try to destroy their career? 
Apparently. I can't think of any other reason.

  One victim, and I will put her name up, lives, as I said, maybe only 
5 miles from where my wife and I live. She is a social worker from 
Cleveland Heights. Her name is Carla Duncan. She told the Dispatch, 
``It got to the point that I was afraid to open my own door.''
  Mr. Faith, whom I quoted before, said it has been devastating, not 
only to people who got caught in this kind of scheme but also to people 
who happened to live in the neighborhood, people like Ms. Duncan. It is 
scary that this man, whose bank--because of the behavior of that bank, 
because of a policy handed down by Mr. Mnuchin, because of a policy 
about which he lied--lied to the committee of the Senate, lied 
according to the most Republican conservative paper in Ohio, and she 
lost her home.
  This guy is going to be the Secretary of the Treasury when he did all 
of that. It is scary. It is scary for hard-working families in Ohio and 
across the country who are still digging out from the financial crisis. 
I have said on this floor a number of times: ZIP Code 44105 in 
Cleveland where I live had more foreclosures than any ZIP Code in the 
United States of America in the first half of 2007.
  How can the people of Ohio of ZIP Code 44105 or any other ZIP Code in 
a State like mine or Nevada or Nebraska or a number of other States--
how can they trust this Secretary of the Treasury who not only profited 
off this crisis but made it worse? How can you elevate somebody like 
that to being Secretary of the Treasury?
  One of his employees said the bank did not have any process in place 
to help families avoid foreclosures. It might cost the bank some 
profits if they helped these families avoid foreclosure. So, what the 
heck--foreclosure, we make more money that way. That was Mr. Mnuchin's 
bottom line. His bank was not even pretending to care about the 
thousands of families who could lose their homes and, with them, their 
lives.
  Lincoln once said--his staff always insisted he stay in the White 
House and win the war and free the slaves and preserve the Union. 
Lincoln said: No, I have to go out and get my public-opinion bath. In 
other words, I want to talk to people whose lives are affected because 
of the decisions that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United 
States, make. I want to know what people's lives are like--as much as I 
can understand--so I can make the right decision.
  Do you think that Mr. Mnuchin has spoken to these families? Do you 
think he has met Ms. Duncan? I assume not.
  Do you think he has spoken to any of these families who lost 
everything when his bank took their homes and turned their lives upside 
down? Do you think he talked to any of them?
  Do any of my Republican colleagues talk to people who have lost their 
homes because of something a greedy bank executive did? If any of my 
Republican colleagues would talk to people like Ms. Duncan, I am 
thinking they would not--you know the line: One bird flies off a 
telephone wire, they all fly off.
  I am thinking my Republican colleagues would not quite all be flying 
off the telephone wire in unanimity and in consensus to vote for people 
like Stephen Mnuchin, who is ethically challenged, who has wreaked so 
much havoc on so many people's lives, who has shown no empathy for 
people, like Ms. Duncan, who were foreclosed on.
  We are going to elevate him to Secretary of the Treasury because 
every one of my Republican colleagues is going to go: Yes. Yes. Yes. 
Yes--52 times. I guess that is what is happening. But it would be 
really nice if some of my colleagues would go and speak to the Ms. 
Duncans of the world and call up Mr. Mnuchin and say: Give us a list of 
the people you foreclosed on. We would like to talk to some of them 
before we vote.
  I know we are voting on Monday. My colleagues, mostly, are home for 
the weekend. I am not sure they are going to have dinner with very many 
of these Ms. Duncans. I think they are probably going to have dinner at 
nicer places than Ms. Duncan has been able to go to because of the 
economic problems caused by this future Treasury Secretary.
  At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Mnuchin actually said to the 
committee that he ``never wanted to be in the mortgage servicing 
business.'' It showed in his treatment of homeowners, including the 
Active-Duty members of our military in Ohio and across the country. It 
is a strange thing to say, for someone who brought a thrift that held 
more than $20 billion of its own mortgages and serviced $185 billion 
worth of mortgages in total. He said he did not want to do this, but 
then he bought that bank. I don't know quite what he was talking about.
  It concerns me because he suggests he was more focused on turning a 
profit--pretty obvious. We know that. What he was doing, instead of 
helping Americans keep their homes was--while he was CEO of OneWest, 
what was he doing? He was handing out hundreds of millions of dollars 
in insider loans to a troubled Hollywood media company.
  So on the one side he is foreclosing on people's homes. He is making 
a lot of money doing that. He is making a lot of money, so he had a lot 
of money to hand out. He is handing out hundreds of millions of dollars 
in insider loans to a company in Hollywood, a media company called 
Relativity. He was friends with the CEO of Relativity. His hedge fund, 
Dune, was an investor. He was cochairman of the board.
  On top of all this, the FBI is investigating Relativity. A group of 
Relativity investors have filed a lawsuit accusing him of fraud.
  It is bad enough what happened to Ms. Duncan and how he lied to the 
committee, not to mention the FBI investigation and all of that. A guy 
like that could not get elected to the Senate with his ethics 
challenges.
  Do you know what else? He probably could not get hired in the 
Treasury Department or in this body with those kinds of ethics, but we 
are going to vote for him--52 of my colleagues, all apparently afraid 
of Donald Trump calling them out, giving them a nickname, and ruining 
their careers. They are all going to vote 52 times--52 of them--for him 
as Secretary of Treasury.

  So let's review: False testimony, families losing their homes to a 
big bank's abusive practices, fraud accusations, insider loans, and 
this President chose Mr. Mnuchin, this President who said he is going 
to drain the swamp.
  Mr. Mnuchin made a fortune kicking military servicemembers and 
seniors and working families out of their homes. He gave false 
testimony to the Finance Committee. With that record, what are Wall 
Street lawbreakers going to think when he is supposed to be the top 
voice on financial oversight?
  He has never had empathy for people like Ms. Duncan. He really did 
not much care or talk to these people who lost their homes. He also 
won't do that as Secretary of the Treasury. He won't--I can't imagine--
show any empathy toward people who are hurt by his actions.
  He is also setting an example to Wall Street that now there is no 
sheriff in

[[Page S1086]]

town. If you are Wall Street, you can get away with anything with this 
guy as Secretary of the Treasury. You can get away with anything with 
Steve Mnuchin as Secretary of the Treasury.
  Last week, the former second in command at Goldman Sachs, Clevelander 
Gary Cohn, went on TV to praise the President's Executive order to 
start rolling back Wall Street reforms. The Executive order puts Steve 
Mnuchin, if he is confirmed, in change of dismantling Wall Street 
reform.
  After the crisis, Democrats put a real cop on the beat by creating 
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This independent law 
enforcement agency returned $12 billion in hard-earned money back to 29 
million Americans. We know it works. We also know that Wall Street 
hates the consumer bureau.
  The American people don't suffer from the same collective amnesia 
that Wall Street and its allies in Congress have about how devastating 
the crisis was for our country. The people we represent know, and 
Mnuchin's bank proves, when we turn the reins to Wall Street, it is 
working families who pay the price. Wall Street has recovered from this 
financial crisis. ZIP Code 44105 in Cleveland has not recovered from 
this financial crisis. Seniors who have lost savings haven't recovered. 
People who have lost jobs haven't recovered. People who have lost their 
homes haven't recovered.

  Mr. Mnuchin has done just fine. People at Goldman Sachs have done 
just fine, and so many others have. I just don't know how we trust Mr. 
Mnuchin to rein in Wall Street.
  I would ask my colleagues, in conclusion, if they believe misleading 
the Senate should disqualify them from confirmation because how are we 
going to have hearings in the future when people--they may raise their 
right hand and swear an oath or they may not. But it is generally 
expected that, if you are going to testify in the Finance Committee, 
you might want to tell the truth. It is kind of expected. It is kind of 
what you are expected to do.
  But Congressman Price didn't tell the truth. Now he is the Secretary 
of Health and Human Services. He lied, according to the Wall Street 
Journal, America's most conservative mainstream newspaper. Mr. Mnuchin, 
came in front of the Finance Committee. He lied, according to the 
Columbus Dispatch, Ohio's most conservative Republican newspaper. So 
why should testimony to a Senate committee even matter? Why should it 
even matter? When you put a cop on the beat like Mr. Mnuchin, why 
should Wall Street get more honest instead of even less honest when it 
comes to abusing the public? That is my fear if Secretary Mnuchin is 
confirmed.
  Again, I am sorry my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are 
just--they are afraid of this President of the United States.
  In a few months, they will quit being afraid of him because they will 
realize the kind of President it looks like he is turning out to be. It 
seems to me they may be the last to learn this.