Mnuchin Picks For Top Treasury Positions Fail Trump’s Loyalty Test

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By Nathan Guttman March 9, 2017

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is having a hard time filling top positions in his office.

The reason does not rest in Treasury becoming, all of a sudden, less attractive to aspiring politicians and top financial minds, but rather in Mnuchin’s picks lacking one key quality – loyalty to President Donald Trump.

According to reports in Bloomberg and Axios many of the names offered by Mnuchin to fill senior Treasury positions were shot down by Trump’s White House.

Among the top picks that Mnuchin failed to pass are one who was posted critical tweets about Trump and another who did not pass the vetting because he donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Is Mnuchin being too liberal with his picks or is the White House micromanaging the staffing process?

Probably the latter. Mnuchin, who comes with Wall Street and Hollywood background may be close to more liberal figures than others in the Trump administration, but the problem is shared by other cabinet secretaries as well, including Rex Tillerson at the State Department and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, both known for their conservative views.

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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