Thread by @leee_harris

The bank industry has run an aggressive red-baiting campaign against Saule Omarova.

But the Marxist smear is a red herring.

What are banks really worried about? Conventional finreg, like Omarova’s power to restrict derivatives trading.

w/ @ddayen:

prospect.org/economy/wall-s…

Omarova is testifying before the Senate Banking Committee this morning, where under pressure she gave this debased opening statement

(Swear I hate the reds and love free enterprise 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸)

banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…

Toomey slams Omarova’s case for putting credit to “productive uses.”

“It's troubling to ponder how she or anyone would choose to define ‘productive uses’ in our economy. How about loans to oil, gas and coal companies?”

She would push fossil fuel firms into bankruptcy, he says.

Toomey warns against ending fossil fuel finance with “Americans paying close to $5/g for gas, and home heating costs soaring due to the Biden administration’s disastrous energy policies.”

Here’s @amoshochstein refuting narrative that energy transition is causing the price surge:

Kennedy asks about Omarova’s membership in a Soviet youth group.

“Everybody in that country was a member of the Komsomol... it was a part of normal progress in school.”

“Have you resigned?”

“You grow out of it with age.”

“Did you send them a letter, though, resigning?”

Cynthia Lummis, who owns Bitcoin and is pushing for lighter crypto regs, praises adoption of Bitcoin as national currency in *El Salvador*

“How do you think that you, as a regulator, can make the judgment calls that people don’t have adequate access to capital?”

North Carolina Sen Tillis playing to the anti-woke/CRT crowd:

“Being an immigrant, a woman, and a minority — do you believe that to be the basis for any of the questions that have been asked of you today?”

“...I just don't see any basis for the so-called McCarthyism and bias.”