Video has emerged of President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova, saying she wants oil and gas companies to go 'bankrupt.'
'We want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change, right?' the Soviet-born Omarova said in a clip that was shared online by the conservative-leaning American Accountability Foundation.
She made the comments in February when appearing at the Jain Family Institute's Social Wealth Seminar, where she was making the case for a National Investment Authority, which would pull resources from the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to allocate public and private capital for green infrastructure projects.
The resurfaced clip could hinder Omarova's ability to get all 50 Democrats to support her nomination, as every Republican is expected to vote against the Cornell University law professor.
Video has emerged of President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova (pictured), saying she wants oil and gas companies to go 'bankrupt'
President Joe Biden, pictured speaking Wednesday in Baltimore, could see defections from his own party over Omarova's nomination, Axios reported Sunday
Axios reported Sunday that at least three Senate Democrats have aired concerns about her nomination - moderate Sens. Jon Tester of Montana, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Manchin, in particular, has not been supportive in the past of comments made about the demise of the fossil fuel industry, looking out for West Virginia's coal industry.
The Senate Banking Committee's ranking member, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, told Axios, 'Republicans will overwhelmingly oppose this self-described radical.'
Last month, Toomey demanded she turn over a copy of her university thesis – in both English and the original Russian – for review by the committee as it discusses Marxism and revolution.
DailyMail.com reported that a top Russian university destroyed its only copy of Omarova's thesis on Marxism.
Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee expressed outrage that Omarova refused to turn over her Moscow State University dissertation.
And DailyMail.com has been told that there is no longer a copy in the institution's archives.
'It was destroyed long ago,' said a university official.
'We do not have a copy.'
Moscow State University only keeps such works for five years, said the official.
Saule Omarova, a Cornell Law School professor, has been nominated to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
An exclusive new photograph shows Omarova as a proud 'Young Pioneer' - the Communist youth mass movement - at her Soviet school number 21 in Uralsk, now Oral, in Kazakhstan. She is wearing the red scarf of the movement in a picture dating from 1979-80
It was titled: 'Karl Marx's Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital'.
But she ignored a deadline he set, and appears unlikely to hand it over.
It is assumed she has her own copy of the thesis even if her old university no longer possesses one.
'Ms. Omarova has time to attack Republicans in an interview with the Financial Times, but she can't be bothered to comply with a Banking Committee requirement that nominees - regardless of their political party or ideology - submit copies of their writings,' said Amanda Gonzalez Thompson, spokesperson for Senate Banking Committee Republicans.
'We certainly hope she reconsiders so senators have the information necessary to fulfill their constitutional duty to advise and consent on appointments.'
Omarova did not respond to requests for comment.
DailyMail.com has obtained pictures of Omarova from her time in the Soviet education system.
An exclusive new photograph shows her as a proud 'Young Pioneer' - the Communist youth mass movement - at her Soviet school number 21 in Uralsk, now Oral, in Kazakhstan.
It was taken in the year 1979-1980, and she wears the red scarf of a movement dedicated to Vladimir Lenin.
Pictures obtained by DailyMail.com show Omarova growing up in the communist education system. This one shows her around grade nine in about 982-83
Omarova graduated from school in 1984 en route to Moscow State University. She was already a member of the Komsomol, or Young Communists, as she graduated with a gold medal
Another image shows her in class, believed to be in Grade 9, in 1982-83.
One more is a picture from 1984 of her school graduation when she was already an enthusiastic member of the Komsomol, or Young Communists as she left to study at prestigious Moscow State University.
She graduated with a rare gold medal, signifying her academic achievements, and opening the door to her move to the prestigious Moscow university.
Omarova recently denied having Communist sympathies and said that in the USSR there was 'no academic freedom,' making it unfair to judge her by what she wrote as a Soviet undergraduate student.
She told the Financial Times: 'I was in the Soviet Union, where there was no academic freedom, and this was a mandatory assigned topic.
'What I wrote in that paper has nothing to do with what I believed in then or in what I believe in now.'
She said: 'My grandmother was orphaned because Stalin sent her entire family to Siberia and they died there.
Saule Omarova (circled) is photographed during her studies at Moscow State University, in Russia in 1988 when Mikhail Gorbachev was president of the Soviet Union. She studied under a scholarship named after Vladimir Lenin and wrote a thesis on Karl Marx
Omarova has previously called Wall Street's hedge funds a 'quintessential a**hole industry' in the documentary A**holes: A Theory (pictured here). She has offered other controversial opinions such as opposing private banking and praised the Soviet Union's financial system
'Her family was destroyed because they were educated Kazakhs who didn't join the party.
'I was really lucky to get to Moscow State University . . . I was 18, and within a year I became an anti-communist like most of my classmates.
'We were reading stuff that was prohibited.
'We were listening to Pink Floyd, which was illegal, we were talking about Solzhenitsyn [the author and Soviet dissident].'
Former school classmate Elena Samokisha said: 'I remember her as a kind and nice person.
'I was her classmate beginning from Grade 7.
'She is really a cool person. and I am happy the fate brought us together. I would love to wish her luck.'
In announcing her as Biden's pick for Comptroller of the Currency last month, the White House said: 'She is one of the country’s leading academic experts on issues related to regulation of systemic risk and structural trends in financial markets.'
The job involves regulating and supervising all national banks and savings institutions as well as foreign banks in the United States.
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