President Joe Biden’s pick for the nation’s top banking regulator, who received a scholarship named for Vladimir Lenin, scrubbed her résumé of a reference to a thesis she wrote on Karl Marx while a student at Moscow State University.
Saule Omarova, who Biden tapped to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, listed a paper titled "Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital" on her résumé as recently as 2017. But the paper was not disclosed on the version of the résumé reported last month by the Washington Free Beacon. Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, pressed Omarova about the discrepancy in a letter on Tuesday asking her to hand over a copy of her report.
Omarova, a professor at Cornell Law School, has already proved a controversial nominee. She has said she wants to "end banking as we know it" by providing bank services through the Federal Reserve rather than private banks. She has also proposed the creation of a federal agency called the National Investment Authority, which would coordinate long-term national economic strategy and infrastructure development for the United States. Omarova, who left the Soviet Union after graduating from Moscow State in 1989, has praised the Soviet Union for eliminating the gender pay gap.
Toomey asked Omarova to provide a copy of the original thesis to the Senate banking committee by Oct. 13. He said in a statement that neither Omarova nor the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency agreed to hand over the thesis. He noted that presidential nominees are required to submit all copies of their published writings.
Omarova did not respond to questions about the thesis or the revision to her résumé. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also did not respond to requests for comment.
Omarova has received support from progressive lawmakers and special interest groups who support more regulation of the banking system. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) called her nomination "tremendous news." The Sierra Club said that Omarova would erect "guardrails against Wall Street's risky fossil fuel investments" to fight "climate chaos."