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Goldman Sachs Trumps U.S.

Candidate Trump v. President Trump
Additional Details: GoldmanSachsTrumps.US

Candidate Trump Attacked

Political Influence of Goldman Sachs

Throughout his campaign for president, Donald Trump attacked Goldman Sachs during both the
primary and general elections, claiming the bank had gained total, total control over political
rivals like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He accused
Goldman of colluding with [Clinton] to ruin the U.S. and enrich the elite.1

Trump even ended his campaign with a television ad derided by many as anti-Semitic, which
accused the CEO of Goldman Sachs of being part of the global power structure responsible for
having robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into
the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.2

President Trump Is Filling His

Administration with Goldman Sachs Executives

Despite the attacks of Candidate Trump on Goldman Sachs, President Trump has seen fit to
hire many current and former Goldman Sachs executives to positions that include three top
administration posts, his nominee for chair of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), and
his nominee for Treasury Secretary.

Trumps nominee for Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, is a second-generation Goldman
Sachs partner, while Jay Clayton, his nominee for SEC chair, is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell,
which has been Goldman Sachs go-to law firm for more than a century. Three of Trumps
highest-ranking advisors have prominent Goldman Sachs ties. Goldman partner Dina Powell is
taking on a senior administration role in Trumps White House; his chief strategist Steve Bannon
loved working at the bank in the mid-1980s; and his newly named top economic advisor, Gary
Cohn, is the current president and COO of the company.

Gary Cohn

Trumps choice for chair of the National Economic Council, Gary Cohn, joined Goldman Sachs
in 1990 and became a Partner in 1994. Cohn was named Goldmans co-president in 2006, and
in 2009 he became the sole president and COO. Currently he is President and Chief Operating

GOLDMAN SACHS TRUMPS U.S. | ALLIED PROGRESS | 1

Officer of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. He serves as a member of the Goldman Sachs
Management Committee and Board of Directors. He is also the Chairman of the Firmwide Client
and Business Standards Committee.3

Steven Mnuchin

Trumps selection for Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, whose father was a top
Goldman Sachs trader, went to work for Goldman Sachs in 1985, immediately after he
graduated from Yale. Mnuchin worked his way up to become a partner at Goldman Sachs and,
after seventeen years, left in 2002 to work for two hedge funds.4

Steve Bannon

Trumps chief strategist, Steve Bannon, joined Goldman Sachs New York office in the mid1980s, and said for the first few years he worked every day except Christmas and loved it,
explaining the camaraderie at Goldman was amazing. Bannon left Goldman Sachs in 1990
with a couple of Goldman colleagues to launch his own boutique investment bank.5

Jay Clayton

Trumps nominee for SEC chair, Jay Clayton, is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, Goldman Sachs
go-to law firm for more than a century. During the Great Recession, Clayton personally
advised Goldman Sachs on perhaps its most important deal, the $5 billion investment by
Warren E. Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway.6

Dina Powell

Donald Trump, in January 2016, brought Goldman Sachs partner Dina Powell into his
administration. Powell, who has deep ties to both Republicans and Democrats in Washington
will have a senior role that will focus on entrepreneurship, economic growth and the
empowerment of women.7

Even Though Goldman Sachs Helped Tank the Economy

Goldman Sachs is widely blamed for helping to cause the Great Recession by misleading
investors into buying mortgage-backed securities that Goldman knew were indeed riskier
than what they had revealed. In 2016, Goldman finally paid $5 billion in penalties for its role
in the financial crisis, and engaging in what one Acting Associate Attorney General described
as serious misconduct.

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From 2005 to 2007, Goldman Sachs knowingly issued many mortgages and securities
supported by loans borrowed by consumers with shoddy credit ratings, which caused
billions of dollars in losses and caused the Great Recession after the housing bubble burst.

In April 2016, Goldman agreed to pay $5 billion dollars for its role in causing the Great
Recession, and admitted that it had had misled investors by not telling potential investors
they knew their mortgage-backed securities were indeed riskier than what they had revealed.
As part of its settlement, Goldman acknowledged that because of limited sampling before the
financial crisis, not every defective loan came to light. An Acting Associate Attorney General
even said Goldman engaged in serious misconduct by falsely assuring investors that
securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of
mortgages that were likely to fail.

Goldman Sachs $5 billion fine for helping cause the financial crisis included $2.39 billion in civil
penalties, $1.8 billion in loan forgiveness and financing for affordable housing, and $875
million in claims from other federal and state entities.8
Goldman Sachs paid a $550 million settlement to the SEC in 2010 for misleading investors
into buying financial instruments tied to subprime mortgage bonds, which Time called a
worthless, well-packaged fake.

In 2010, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay the SEC $550 million to settle charges that it had misled
investors into buying financial instruments tied to subprime mortgage bonds. The SEC alleged
that Goldman Sachs lied when they told one group of investors they were buying the highestrated bonds, while in reality hedge fund magnate John Paulson was the one really picking the
bonds. Time wrote that Goldman Sachs was like any good snake-oil salesman because they
had sold a worthless, well-packaged fake.9

Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $3 billion to the Federal Housing Finance Agency to settle
claims over their role in the financial crisis.

In 2014, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $3 billion to the Federal Housing Finance Agency to
settle claims with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because of their role in the financial crisis.10

Conclusion

Despite candidate Trumps anti-Goldman Sachs rhetoric, President Trump has proven to be
more than willing to welcome Goldman Sachs executives into the highest levels of his
administration. In doing so, he has betrayed working class Americans who took him at his word
that he would drain the swamp and rid Washington of the influence of powerful special
interests, Wall Street insiders, K Street lobbyists, and corrupt politicians.

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End Notes
1

Shane Goldmacher, One Hundred Days of Donald Trump, Politico, August 10, 2016,
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-100-days-226850; and Lucinda Shen, Goldman Sachs Cant Stop Hating
on Trump, Fortune Magazine, 11/16/16, http://fortune.com/2016/11/16/goldman-trump/.
2
Avi Asher-Schapiro, Donald Trump Said Goldman Sachs Had Total Control Over Hillary ClintonThen Stacked His Team with
Goldman Insiders, International Business Times, November 16, 2016, http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/donald-trumpsaid-goldman-sachs-had-total-control-over-hillary-clinton-then; and Daniel Marans, Donald Trumps Closing Ad Has AntiSemitic Overtones, Huffington Post, November 5, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-ad-antisemiticovertones_us_581e34dee4b0d9ce6fbc76e8.
3
Gary D. Cohn, Goldman Sachs Executive Officers profile, Goldman Sachs website, accessed January 5, 2017,
http://www.goldmansachs.com/who-we-are/leadership/executive-officers/gary-d-cohn.html; and Matt Egan and Phil
Mattingly, Goldman Sachs No. 2 Gary Cohn is Trumps Top Economic Advisor, CNN, December 12, 2016,
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/12/investing/gary-cohn-trump-goldman-sachs-economic-adviser.
4
Max Abelson and Zachary Mider, Trumps Top Fundraiser Eyes the Deal of a Lifetime, Bloomberg, August 31, 2016,
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-31/steven-mnuchin-businessweek; and Anthony Bennett, List of
Goldman Sachs Alumni in Donald Trumps Administration, Heavy, January 5, 2017, http://heavy.com/news/2017/01/donaldtrump-goldman-sachs-drain-swamp-steve-bannon-steven-mnuchin-gary-cohn-jay-clayton/.
5
Joshua Green, This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America, Bloomberg, October 8, 2015,
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/.
6
Leslie Picker, Donald Trump Nominates Wall Street Lawyer to Head S. E. C. New York Times, January 4, 2017,
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/business/dealbook/donald-trump-sec-jay-clayton.html?_r=0.
7
Ben White and Annie Karni, Goldman Sachs Partner to Join Trump Administration, Politico, January 11, 2017,
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/dina-powell-goldman-sachs-joins-trump-233476.
8

Lucinda Shen, Goldman Sachs Finally Admits It Defrauded Investors During the Financial Crisis, Fortune, April 11, 2016,
http://fortune.com/2016/04/11/goldman-sachs-doj-settlement/.
9
Ibid; and Stephen Gandel, The Case Against Goldman Sachs, Time online, April 22, 2010,
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1983886,00.html.
10
Shen, Goldman Sachs Finally Admits It Defrauded Investors.

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