Steven Mnuchin Treasury Secretary Confirmation Will Cost a Fortune – And Then Some

Vetting process came with large bill for a previous Treasury Secretary, Wall Street Journal says

'Suicide Squad' Executive Producer Steven Mnuchin Could Be Your Next Treasury Secretary
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The confirmation process for Treasury Secretary hopeful Steven Mnuchin may have a steep cost — in divesting assets and stocks as well as the revelation of the Hollywood financier’s complex financial ties, according to a new report.

Mnuchin will face “some of the most stringent divestiture requirements” to win his appointment to Donald Trump’s presidential cabinet, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday.

In 2006 Henry Paulson spent an amount equaling his entire Treasury Secretary salary just to get the job offered by President George W. Bush in 2006, an individual familiar with the matter told the Journal. At the time, the Treasury Secretary position paid $183,500, according to CNN Money.

A lesser appointee in Obama’s administration, Steve Rattner, spent $400,000 in legal fees alone to become a Treasury advisor to the auto industry, the individual said.

“Most people in the government are not people with the kind of wealth of the Trump people,” Rattner told the Journal.

An executive producer and financier on films like “Gravity” and “Suicide Squad,” Mnuchin will also be expected to make disclosures of his tax returns, real estate holdings and business contacts during his confirmation process — a process that was far more organized under the first Obama administration as he awaited his inauguration, the Journal noted.

“Some of these folks are going to have to leave a lot of money on the table,” former White House personnel advisor Doug Graham told the paper.

A Mnuchin spokesperson did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.

Mnuchin, along with other Trump cabinet hopefuls Wilbur Ross, Gary Cohn and Rex Tillerson, collectively hold $640 million in publicly traded stock, the report said. Estimates of Mnuchin’s personal net worth vary, though the executive reportedly made more than $200 million in his sale of controversial mortgage lender OneWest.

It is also estimated Mnuchin has at least three homes and his particular vetting — for a job that influences tax policy and oversees 100,000 government employees — will face the the most scrutiny of any cabinet appointment at his expected January hearing.

There is a silver lining — the appointees stand to “delay paying tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes on investment gains” while Trump is in office, according to a separate analysis.

In addition to his involvement in Ratpac-Dune, a production partnership with producer Brett Ratner set up at Warner Bros., Mnuchin was a former board member to the now-defunct Relativity Media.

For the record: An earlier version of this post said former Secretary Paulson spent $127 million in professional fees to complete the vetting process. The post has been updated to reflect the Wall Street Journal’s report that Paulson spent a sum equal to his salary as Treasury Secretary when serving in the job. 

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