While many have accused the Biden administration of creeping toward socialism, Joe Biden’s nomination of Saule Omarova to comptroller of the currency demonstrates a sprint. The administration announced it would withdraw her nomination Tuesday, but that it was made at all indicates the administration’s priorities. Omarova expressed a desire to seize for the federal government sweeping powers over banking, including the politicized denial of services.

“Saule would have brought invaluable insight and perspective to our important work on behalf of the American people,” Biden said Tuesday in a statement about withdrawing her nomination. “But unfortunately, from the very beginning of her nomination, Saule was subjected to inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale.” That’s just plain false, and it’s frightening Biden would nominate and praise a woman with her record. //

Omarova, currently a law professor at Cornell University, is a native of Kazakhstan while it fell under the control of the Soviet Union. There, she was a member of the Communist Party.

“Omarova has promoted radical – ‘radical’ is her description — nationalizing the banking system, imposing government price controls, espousing the idea that money is a public, not a private good, curtailing economic innovation, dramatically limiting economic freedom and choice, having the government seize seats on corporate boards,” noted Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania in her hearing. //

Omarova earned her B.A. at Moscow State University, graduating in 1989 on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship prior to immigrating to the United States in 1991. Once in the United States, Omarova earned both her M.A. and Pd.D. at the University of Wisconsin, and her J.D. from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

While at Moscow State, Omarova wrote her thesis entitled, “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in ‘The Capital.’” When questioned about her thesis, she claimed to have forgotten about it, and testified she is unable to locate the document, even though it remained on her resume through 2017.