Omarova Controversy

 

Saule Omarova, Nominee for Comptroller of the Currency

Joe Biden’s pick for a top banking regulatory position said that she was an “anti-communist” while attending school in the Soviet Union and that critics accusing her of radicalism are lashing out against her because of her heritage and gender. Saule Omarova, a Kazakh-born law professor at Cornell University who graduated college in the USSR, is pushing back on Republicans and business groups for opposing her nomination to be comptroller of the currency. She said that though she attended Moscow State University on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship, she does not have Marxist sympathies. “There is definitely a different standard applied to someone like me,” Omarova told the Financial Times. “I am an easy target: an immigrant, a woman, a minority,” she added. “I don’t look like your typical comptroller of the currency. I have a different history. I am easy to demonize and vilify.” Amanda Gonzalez Thompson, the spokeswoman for Senate Banking Committee Republicans, fired back at Omarova in a statement Thursday afternoon. She said Omarova's characterization of GOP condemnation was "a classic response from the extreme left" and that because Omarova can't defend her "bad ideas," she has resorted to accusing her critics of being "racist misogynists." "Ms. Omarova has time to attack Republicans in an interview with the Financial Times, but she can’t bother to comply with a Banking Committee requirement that nominees — regardless of their political party or ideology — submit copies of their writings," Gonzalez Thompson said. "We certainly hope she reconsiders so Senators have the information necessary to fulfill their constitutional duty to advise and consent on appointments." Omarova’s nomination drew the ire of Republicans on Capitol Hill over some of her academic musings, including her advocation for the end of banking “as we know it.” (Washington Examiner)