It would be a pity, for Steven Mnuchin, if his nomination for Treasury secretary were to come unstuck over 27 cents. Yet that is the sum for which OneWest, the bank he chaired, tried to foreclose on the house of Ossie Lofton two years ago.
Ms Lofton, then 90, was sent a bill for $423.30: an insurance premium on credit secured against the equity in her home in Lakeland, Florida. She sent back a cheque for $423. OneWest asked for the 30 cents. She wrote another cheque, mistakenly making it out for 3 cents. Then the bank served a foreclosure notice.
To critics such as Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, this kind of thing should automatically disqualify Mr Mnuchin from high office. Within hours of his nomination this week by Donald Trump, the president-elect, Ms Warren put out a statement characterising the multimillionaire banker as “the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis”, caught up in “all the worst practices on Wall Street” during his career at Goldman Sachs, a hedge fund and at OneWest.
