During his time running mortgage lender OneWest, which he bought with a group of investors for pennies on the dollar before selling it for a personal profit of many millions, Steven Mnuchin & Co. foreclosed on more than 36,000 homeowners. Because (1) that’s a lot of people kicked out of a lot houses and (2) everyone loves a good nickname, Mnuchin has earned the moniker, in some circles, “Foreclosure King,” or ”Foreclosure King of California,” if you’re not one for brevity.
And if Mnuchin, whom Donald Trump has nominated to run the Treasury Department, can be honest? It really pisses him off, as do all the other criticisms that have been lobbed in his direction since Trump put him up for the job. That includes, but is not limited to, that leaked memo from the California attorney general’s office alleging that OneWest backdated documents so they could push more foreclosures through. Not to mention the fact that no one has talked about the great, dare he say, saintly work he did running the bank.
Luckily, Mnuchin will have a platform tomorrow during his Senate confirmation hearing to get these gripes off his chest:
Moving forward, if you must refer to him using some sort of sobriquet, a list of acceptable names include “Benevolent Banker” or “Magnanimous Mnuchin.” Your choice.