Sponsor terrorism. We also have sanctions against countries that are violating our International Norms on democratic principles. Russia is top on that list. Im going to ask you questions for the record as to your views on the current sanctions and strengthening sanctions. We have Bipartisan Legislation to strengthen the sanctions, particularly with russias attack against americas democratic election institutions. But i want to make sure i understand. You are committed to enforcing the sanctions against russia . 100 so. And i think the president elect has made it very clear that he would only change those sanctions if he got, quote, a better deal than we got something in return, whether it was on nuclear arms or other areas. But, yes, senator, ive talked to you about this. In response to the questions asked about using the irs, make sure its not used for partisan reasons, you will enforce these sanctions without regard to a persons party, affiliation or office . Of course. I think terrorism is the trump and supporting terrorism and supporting illegal activities is the most important issue, and i hope thats not a bipartisan i hope that is a bipartisan issue and where there are sanctions, i assure you, i will use them to the maximum amount allowable by law. And i appreciate that answer. Senator warren and i are going to be sending you a letter. If you are confirmed, to investigate the allegations that mr. Scaramucci, who was recently naumd as the white house director of engagement in Intergovernmental Affairs and Senior Adviser to the president , may very well have violated the sanctions against russia in his dealings. And i accept that you would investigate this issue to see whether there was a violation of the sanction law. Of course. Anything that you send to me, i will either myself or make sure that my staff properly investigates. And have your respect that i would do that 100 . I thank you for that. I want to follow up on the second point of senator wyden which really has me concerned, and that is that you pointed out that you would treat in your International Roles an American Company thats deal with foreign markets equally, even if its a trump enterprise entity. You are taking an oath to defend the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the United States, theres the clause and you have to make sure that if you are deal with a trump entity that its not getting a favor in exchange for trying to influence the president of the United States and the Trump Administration. So how do you go about knowing that theres no special breaks being given to a trump enterprise if you dont have full access to that type of information . Well, senator, let me first say, and i think we all acknowledge this, whichever side were on, that we are in a unique situation that we have a president who has the vast amount of money that we know that. Of course, but hes not doing what every other president every other president has done. Every other president set up a blind trust or divest. What you are dooring, divesting. Hes not doing that. So my question to you, how do you if confirmed, deal with compliance to the constitution, to make sure that a trump enterprise is not getting special treatment which would violate our constitution . Well, senator, let me first say, and i think this is a very important issue for the American Public so i can understand why youre asking it. But let me first say, i know that the president elect is absolutely following the law and is committed to following the law and has set out a series of although its not a blind trust, he has removed himself from his business. He has put his sons in charge of his business. Hes committed that but as i understand excuse me one second. Hes going to hire an ethics officer, and i can assure you that in my job of treasury secretary, whatever responsibilities i have to monitor these issues, which are very important, i can assure you that i will do. What you didnt answer and well follow up with some questions, how do you determine, make sure there isnt a break given to a trump enterprise, which would violate our constitution . I understand its complying with the law but the constitution is the supreme law of the land. Well, as you know, ive employed lots of lawyers, but im not a lawyer. But the good news is, we have a big group of lawyers in the Treasury Department and in a big ethics group and i can assure you that well make sure that we absolutely follow the law and the constitution and i have every reason to believe that the president elect absolutely wants to adhere to it and will do so. Senator brown . Thank you, mr. Chairman. And mr. Mnuchin, thank you for the conversation. And my office about thank you for meet with me. Taxes and china and banking issues. Lets clear up one thing. Banks are not, in your words, highly innocented to do modifications for their borrowers. Thats why we had a systemic breakdown and so many families lost their homes and banks were forced to pay billions of dollars in fines and remediation. I want to talk about your situation. I understand your defensiveness both in individual meetings, mine and others, and in this committee about what happened at one west but let me lay this out. In 2006, Businessman Donald Trump responded to a question about the possibility of a real estate crash by saying, quote, i hope i sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy, unquote. You didnt just buy properties. You bought the baunk, the abiliy to help families stay in their homes. Thats not what you did. So my questions are these. Youve been saying lets look at the record. I really want yes or no answers because i have a lot of questions and what i will say is factual in my view. Id like you to confirm with yes or no. Is it true that Community Groups say that one west specifically the california the california reinvestment coalition, is it true the Community Groups say that one west foreclosed on 60,000 families nationwide and denied threefourths of mortgage modification applications . I am not aware of that. I know theyve well, they did. If you know they did, then why because i want to hear it from you. If you i dont have it from me. Im going to keep interrupting. I apologize if you see that as rude. I dont see that as rude. Is it true one west regulatorsed is you have deficient mortgage practices foreclosed on 10,000plus borrowers without proper procedure in at least 23 who were current on their mortgages . So what i would say is we followed the same procedure yes or no. Did the occ say that . The fdic followed. We inherited the fdic the occ is separate. Let hum answer the question. Is it true that one west independent audit firm said it violated the Service Members civil relief act by initiating foreclosures on 54 active duty military families . Thats what the independent audit firm said. You have the document in front of you, i dont. Well, they do. Let me just say im pretty surprised you dont know these things because youve been rather defensive for probably good reason about what happened at one west. I is it true the California Attorney germ i want to comment for the record. We did foreclose on certain people in the military. It was quite unfortunate it was inappropriate. We responded to those people and made them whole. As i said, every Single Person had the opportunity to have their mortgage reviewed and we corrected any errors. Our errors were less than anybody else. Okay, im going to cut you off. Its not that im being defensive. Im proud of our i wouldnt be proud of all these findings. Is it true the California AttorneyGenerals Office said one west back dated 96 of the documents they examined and the their investigation. Did they say that . First, let me comment that i sought the leaked memo as you did. I think its highly inappropriate that somebody at the Attorney Generals Office was so is there no truth in that about back dating 26 what i would say is the primary regulator was the occ. They were the ones who had the obligation to occ said the they said you had these deficient mortgage practices which you couldnt remember when i asked you about occ. Now youre saying occ in response to California Attorney general. Is it true that one of the employees who was in charge of the modification, one of one west employees is accused one west of not having any process in place to help its 3,000 fha and va mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure . And that this same employee, who was in charge of modifications, has accused one west of not having a process in place to help those va mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosures and submitting false claims . It seems to me, in all due respect, you want to shoot questions at me and not let me explain e ill let you explain after ill let you explain when im done. Well, then at least understand, these are complicated questions. They are complicated. Let me at least explain them otherwise theres no point in shooting them all at me and i dont have the ability to respond. You dont but all of these are factual things. If you want to follow up with a response later in more detail. One example of and you can answer this and take as long as you need. One example of an insider loan was the media deal. The fbi denied a foia request. Have you been questioned by Law Enforcement on this . Yes or no. I have not. And i saw that you wrote that letter yesterday. I assume that the fbi did a thorough review of my background report. I have no idea why they didnt prove the foia issue. Ive been told we have no reason to believe its any issue associated with me. Fair enough. I am glad you should direct that to the fbi. Okay, and i will. I accept your answer. I accept your answer. Youre not being investigated but i find it interesting that you know about the letter i sent yesterday. The letter i sent with all those questions detailing all of the issues i just asked about with bank west, west bank one west. One west, i apologize. Thats right. My father forgot the name sometimes as well. The letter i support you back in early, middecember about this youve not even taken the time to answer and it really laid out all of this. The one west purchase went well for the treasury secretary desing ide designee but it was bad for investors and taxpayers. We can talk more about taxpayer cost on this whole process and the amount of money that he bought it for, sold it for but mostly subsidized by taxpayers. Senator, your time is up. You take as much time as you want to answer. First of all, senator, i did enjoy meeting you. I dont believe we had the opportunity to meet before that time. And if im confirmed, i look forward to spending more time with you. Thank you for saying that. I know that you have some, although we may not agree on everything, there were certain things we did agree on when we met. And i have a lot of respect as you as a senator to hear your issues. Now i did tell you, i did acknowledge that you sent me the letter. I was advised by the staff that the appropriate thing was for me to come here and answer questions or meet with all of you independently and answer questions that you have. And if i dont satisfy that, you have the ability to submit questions afterwards, which ill respond to. When i came to your office, i told you that, and i said i would spend as much time with you as you wanted answering those questions that they were quite significant. And, you know, because i knew they were complicated. So i did tell you, although i wouldnt respond to them in writing at that point, that i did understand your questions and i wanted to address them. Senator thune. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mnuchin, welcome. We havent had a single year where the growth rate has exceeded 3 . A lot of the Current Administration describes that as the new normal. Thats a reasonable expectation in terms of the growth rate in our economy . Historically if you go back to world war ii, what is a reasonable growth rate . Hang on. Im just looking at some of my notes. The short answer is ive said publicly and i believe that we should be able to get to 3 to 4 sustained gdp. I think that thats absolutely important. I think that as a country, the most important issue we have is Economic Growth. That whatever issues we have, as republicans or democrats, i think we can agree that with more growth, its a lot easier to solve these issues and we should all be focused on things that help grow the economy. In 1984, we had 7 . In 1998, we had 5 . In 2005 we had 3 . That was the last time we had appropriate growth rates. So i share the president elects concern of low growth. Our number one priority from my standpoint is Economic Growth, and i can assure you, i will work tirelessly, if i am confirmed, to create growth in the economy and create probroeth programs. And i commit to work with all of you on that. Were going to break away from the hearing right now. We see the family getting off this u. S. Air force jet thats just landed outside of washington, d. C. Joint base andrews. You see some of the trump family members, the kids, grandkids, others walking down. Theyre going to be heading over to a series of events here, jake, in washington. A series of events that will underscore the, i guess, what we can say the majesty of what is about to happen. The transfer of power to a new president. We see don jr. , his family, eric trump, his family. Theres tiffany trump, other members of the president ial transition team. We expect president elect trump and Vice President elect pence at about 2 45 this afternoon east coast time to lay wreaths in a ceremony at Arlington National cemetery. And then this evening, there will be whats called the make America Great again welcome celebration at the lincoln memorial. A number of performers out on the mall for the crowd. We expect president elect trump will speak at that perhaps as well. This is truly the beginning, as of right now, youre witnessing it right now, the beginning of president elect trumps time in washington, d. C. Officially beginning right now as he touches base on that airplane at joint base andrews right outside washington, d. C. He will be here for the duration. Hell be walking out of this plane shortly. Gloria, the president elect and his family will be staying at blair house tonight, the official residence for visitors for guests from the white house. There he comes. You see the president elect of the United States walking down. Theyre going to hold on to the sides. The future first lady Melania Trump. They are walking down, holding the sides as i hoped they would. This is a moment that im sure for the trumps themselves, its hard to believe its all falling into place right now. First of all, they arent on their usual airplane, wolf. And they are at joint base andrews. And Melania Trump, who has not spent a lot of time in washington, it must all be becoming very real for her at this moment. And so i think its a different feeling for them as they leave trump air back in new york city. We also we dont know, by the way, Melania Trump is going to stay up in new york, at least for the end of the school year. They have a 10yearold son barron. Shes going to stay in new york through may or june. We dont know what happens after that if she and barron plan on spending most of their time in new york with the president elect going up on weekends or whether she will come down and move into the peoples house, the white house, dana bash. Absolutely. And just i think to look at this scene, i dont care who you are. If you are used to flying on trump air with gold plated everything, to play in to joint base andrews on that plane and get out with that carpet and to get into that car knowing where youre going, i mean, its pretty remarkable. And even if you are donald trump, youve got to be taking it in and saying, wow. This is happening. I am now here on the ground headed to be the 45th president of the United States. And the fact that he got to this moment is just amazing. John king, tomorrow morning, there will be the official transfer before the swearing in ceremony up on capitol hill. The president elect will sit down with the president of the United States and theyll have an opportunity to talk. And partisans will view this through their prism. Democrats are still having sore feelings. I hope everybody takes a moment to look at the majesty of it. The president elect, who will be president this time tomorrow, saluting as he comes down those steps. Its a signature moment. The president getting on marine one, off marine one, on or off. He salutes or waves. It will be donald trump for the next four years. Eight years of barack obama. Three successive twoterm president s. Well stay in blair house tonight across the street from the white house. The official guest residence. Coffee with the obamas and then ride up to the capitol. Were focussing on the feisty confirmation hearings. The fight over the trump team. A lot of issues to be debated and questions about the agend athe priorities and speed and what will come first, the sequencing of the new administration. I hope everybody just takes a few minutes to just say, this is something to celebrate whether you are happy or mad at the results, this is a great country. Coming into work today, they have the security barriers up everywhere. You can still get your coffee and go about your business. And this part should be celebrated by everybody. 228 years of the peaceful transfer of power. Fight the next day. This part, i hope everybody would just respect the process and the majesty and lets see how trump grows into this. Hes never been a politician or in Elective Office. Were about to learn a lot about this man. He should also have th