A Senate Banking Committee hearing went off the McCarthyism rails on Thursday when Senator John Kennedy (LA) attacked Biden’s nominee as top banking regulator, suggesting her views are communist.
Saule Omarova, tapped to be comptroller of the currency, was born in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan and has been a U.S. citizen for 15 years. She is a professor at Cornell University, and a former George W. Bush administration veteran.
Republicans have accused Omarova of a radical with socialist ideas, but Kennedy focused on her “membership” in a communist youth group.
Senator Elizabeth Warren cleared up the attack.
The Biden administration has privately told people that at least seven Democratic senators have reservations about her nomination, POLITICO reported, including Tester and Warner, as well as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who both sit on the Banking Committee, which will vote whether to send her nomination to the full Senate.
Omarova has suggested that some of the opposition to her nomination was based on racism.
