President Joe Biden has withdrawn the nomination of Saule Omarova to become the Comptroller of the Currency, according to a statement by the Whitehouse. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is an independent bureau under the US Department of Treasury and the lead regulator for federal banks and savings institutions.
Omorava had been lambasted for her extreme views and radical policy positions that could have undermined the US banking system. The hearing for her nomination at the Senate Banking Committee saw senators on both sides criticize Omorava’s past statements. Her removal from consideration had been widely anticipated.
President Biden’s statement on the decision is below:
I have accepted Saule Omarova’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. I nominated Saule because of her deep expertise in financial regulation and her long-standing, respected career in the private sector, the public sector, and as a leading academic in the field. She has lived the American dream, escaping her birthplace in the former Soviet Union and immigrating to America, where she went on to serve in the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush and now works as a professor at Cornell Law School.
As a strong advocate for consumers and a staunch defender of the safety and soundness of our financial system, Saule would have brought invaluable insight and perspective to our important work on behalf of the American people. But unfortunately, from the very beginning of her nomination, Saule was subjected to inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale. I am thankful to Chairman Brown for giving her a fair hearing and the opportunity to demonstrate her qualifications.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is a critical agency, supervising and regulating about 1,200 national banks in the federal banking system. I will continue to work to find a nominee for this position, and plan to make an announcement at a future date.
Omarova, a Professor of Law at Cornell, wrote a letter indicating that it is “no longer tenable for me to continue as a Presidential nominee.”
During the nomination hearing, Senator Pat Toomey, the ranking Republican on the Committee, stated:
“My concern with Prof. Omarova is her long history of promoting ideas that she herself describes as “radical.” I agree that they are radical. But I’d also describe them as socialist. In fact, I’ve never seen a more radical nominee to be a federal regulator.”
Several Democrat Senators on the Banking Committee also voiced their concern as they deemed Omarova’s views as extreme as well. In the ensuing days, it was messaged to the Whitehouse that Omarova lacked the support to make it out of the Committee.
Perhaps a bigger question for the President is how someone with such radical ideas, who effectively advocated for the nationalization of certain banking services, was approved during the vetting process. It should be obvious to everyone that the country dodged a political bullet that was an ill-advised choice from the beginning.