Steven Mnuchin, millionaire and former Goldman Sachs exec, confirmed as Trump's treasury secretary

Impact

The U.S. Senate voted 53-47 on Monday evening to confirm former Goldman Sachs executive, hedge fund manager and controversial Wall Street insider Steve Mnuchin as President Donald Trump's secretary of the treasury.

Mnuchin, one of the first Wall Street titans to endorse Trump's run for the presidency, will be tasked with a wide variety of financial and economic functions, including managing the nation's finances, printing currency, tax collection, Wall Street oversight and advising on policy.

He's yet another one of the ultra-wealthy figures to populate Trump's administration, and may boast a net worth of up to $500 million, according to Fortune.

As Mic's James Dennin reported, Mnuchin faced a hostile response from Senate Democrats, particularly in regard to his management of OneWest Bank — which foreclosed on as many as 36,000 homes during the financial crisis under his tenure and has a troubling record of possible discrimination against minority borrowers.

Mnuchin pocketed as much as $200 million during the crisis while tens of thousands of people lost their homes.

According to the Intercept, while Mnuchin was at the helm of OneWest, the bank "didn’t merely act callously, but did so with blatant disregard for the law" on foreclosures. As the Nation reported, Mnuchin eventually flipped OneWest to a financial holding company named the CIT Group for $3.4 billion in a widely protested merger.

The extent of Mnuchin's wealth also became an issue during the confirmation process when Senate Democrats accused him of failing to disclose hundreds of millions in assets.

"Mnuchin's failure to initially disclose his relationship with the funds, along with his minimizing the scope of foreign investment in them during the hearing, has Democrats questioning whether it was part of a deliberate effort to steer them away," CNN reported.

Just one Democrat, former West Virginia governor and current Sen. Joe Manchin, voted to confirm Mnuchin, replicating his earlier lonesome support for Trump's U.S. attorney general, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.