The Foreclosure King Faces His Critics

During his confirmation hearing on Thursday, Steven Mnuchin, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, answered questions on everything from Glass-Steagall to the debt ceiling. He spoke so long that more than one senator asked him to kindly stop filibustering. But on one of the most troubling aspects of his nomination, the former Goldman Sachs executive managed to say little.

One senator after another probed his record as chairman of OneWest Bank, which he and investors founded in 2009. One California housing advocacy group colorfully described the bank as a “foreclosure machine,” an appellation that has stuck. Mnuchin hotly denied this characterization in his opening remarks, telling the Senate Finance Committee that he had been “maligned as taking advantage of others’ hardships in order to earn a buck.”