By David Floyd | 18 April 2017
INVESTOPEDIA — “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs,” Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi wrote in July 2009, “is that it’s everywhere.” Whether that makes the bank a “vampire squid,” in Taibbi’s now-famous phrasing, is debatable, but Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s
The selection of Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary makes the second-generation Goldman partner (his father Robert Mnuchin was also a partner) the second of the firm’s alums to secure a position in Donald Trump’s administration: campaign strategist, Breitbart executive chair and one-time Goldman investment banker Steve Bannon is serving as chief strategist and senior counselor in the new administration (counselor to the president was a cabinet-level position until 1993).
Mnuchin was not the last Goldman alum to join the Trump team, either. In December, NBC reported that Cohn had been picked to head the National Economic Council (NEC), the body that coordinates economic policy across different areas of the administration, and in late January he was officially on board. Initially, Cohn was rumored to be considered as director of the Office of Management and Budget — which is a cabinet-level position that requires Senate confirmation. The head of the NEC is not, however. Hence, the difficulty of getting the Senate’s go-ahead for more than one ex-Goldman nominee might have factored into Trump’s decision.
Finally, seven-year Goldman alum and SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci wa tapped as director of the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Trump administration, but the offer was never formally accepted. The unit was later dismantled into two branches; Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Office of Public Liaison. Scaramicci is currently a senior advisor to the president. […]
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