Steven Mnuchin will directly rebut Democratic criticisms of the foreclosures he oversaw while head of the bank OneWest at his confirmation hearing Thursday, arguing that he prevented even more foreclosures and created jobs.
In his prepared testimony, Mnuchin complained of being “maligned” by Democrats who have accused him of running a “foreclosure machine.”
Instead, Mnuchin insisted he ran a “loan modification machine,” and noted that the bank offered more than 100,000 loan modifications to borrowers.
“If we had not bought IndyMac, the bank would likely have been broken up and sold in pieces to private investors, where the outcome for consumers could have been much bleaker,” Mnuchin said in his prepared remarks. “My group had nothing to do with the creation of risky loans in the IndyMac loan portfolios.”
Democrats have pushed hard to draw attention to the foreclosures undertaken by OneWest, and say the number of foreclosures was inordinate and that many of them were undertaken illegally.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on Wednesday hosted a forum for OneWest customers who are in or facing foreclosure at the Capitol.
