Last month, on September 29, the Biden administration formally named Kazakh-born lawyer Saule Omarova, who critics have labeled as anti-bank and anti-crypto as the next person to head the financial regulator. Toomey requested for a thesis by the new selection, which he believes may reveal Omarova’s Marxist inclinations. Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee are putting pressure on the OCC’s next director to submit his 1989 doctoral thesis on Karl Marx.
Toomey stated in an open letter to Omarova published on October 5 that she had deleted the reference to her thesis “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and The Theory of Revolution in Capital” from her current CV with Cornell Law School, adding that the piece had been included on her resume in April 2017. Toomey says he is requesting the paper so that the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee may “completely evaluate the appropriateness of candidates for independent executive and agency posts approved by the Senate.”
Omarova’s nomination has drawn criticism from some in the Biden administration, who refers to her 2020 comments pushing legislators to “essentially abolish banking as we know it.” Additionally, Omarova described cryptocurrency as a symptom of today’s “dysfunctional financial system.” While Republicans criticized Biden’s pick, Democrats praised the selection, describing it as “the outstanding candidate to oversee and control the operations of the biggest banks in our country.