November 03, 2021

Toomey on Professor Omarova’s Refusal to Turn Over Thesis on Marxism: What is She Hiding?

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Senate Banking Committee formally received President Biden’s nomination of Professor Saule Omarova for Comptroller of the Currency. Notably missing from her paperwork, however, is a copy of her thesis, “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital.


On October 5, 2021, Senator Toomey sent a letter asking Ms. Omarova to provide the Committee with a copy of the thesis no later than October 13, 2021, to allow the Committee adequate time to translate and thoroughly review it. To this day, Ms. Omarova has neither provided a copy of her thesis to the Committee nor provided any explanation for her failure to do so.


“All nominees within the Committee’s jurisdiction are required to provide their writings, articles, and papers. Unfortunately, Professor Omarova appears to believe she is exempt from these rules,” said Ranking Member Toomey. “In order for lawmakers to fully and fairly consider Professor Omarova’s nomination to serve as our nation’s top banking regulator, we need a complete picture of her policy positions. The fact that she recently deleted references to her thesis begs the question: what is she hiding?”


After President Biden announced his intent to nominate Professor Omarova in late September, Committee staff reached out to both the nominee and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) requesting a copy of the thesis. Neither Ms. Omarova nor the OCC agreed to share a copy with the Committee in a timely fashion. Instead, the OCC said it would revisit the issue once her paperwork had been formally submitted to the Committee. While the nomination has now been formally submitted, the Committee has not received any indication that the OCC or the nominee will turn over the thesis.


Last month, Senator Toomey spoke on the Senate floor to raise concerns over Professor Omarova’s plan to have the federal government set price controls for large sectors of the U.S. economy, including food, gas, wages, and home prices.


As the Senator pointed out, Professor Omarova “has been celebrated on the far left for promoting ideas she herself has described as radical,” including advocating for “effectively end[ing] banking as we know it.”


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