NYT: Trump is set to name ex-Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin Treasury Secretary

(AP/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump is set to name his Treasury Secretary as soon as Wednesday, The New York Times reports.

His pick is the ex-Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin, who served as the national finance chair on Trump's presidential campaign.

Mnuchin spent 17 years with Goldman Sachs, and his father worked at the bank for 30 years in stock trading.

Mnuchin was chief information officer at Goldman Sachs before leaving the firm in 2002. He also worked briefly for George Soros.

During the depths of the financial crisis, a group led by Mnuchin bought troubled housing lender Indymac. After renaming the company OneWest, Mnuchin served as chairman of the firm until selling it to CIT Group in 2015.

Mnuchin also became a Hollywood producer founding RatPac-Dune Entertainment with director Brett Ratner and James Packer, financing movies such as "Mad Max: Fury Road," "Batman v. Superman," and more.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein earlier this month called Mnuchin a "high flier, a very nice guy," and a "smart, smart guy."

"He was a very senior guy at a very young age at Goldman Sachs," Blankfein said in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times.

Blankfein said Mnuchin reported to him when he ran the fixed-income division.

"I follow his career, I know what he's done, but I haven't really engaged with him that much," Blankfein said. "I'm sure he stayed just as smart as he was when he was at Goldman."

The appointment of a former Goldman Sachs executive who worked with George Soros is at odds with some of Trump's campaign rhetoric. Blankfein and Soros were both featured in a pre-election campaign ad for Trump that took aim at a "global power structure" that had "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."

Trump separately met with current Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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