Mnuchin prepares to face off with House Democrats

Trump's finance chief will appear in back-to-back hearings before the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee, following through on a pledge he made earlier this year to return to Capitol Hill after the President's fiscal 2020 budget was delivered to Congress on Monday.

Democrats have blasted Trump's proposed $4.7 trillion budget, the largest in history, as a "gut punch" to middle-class Americans that proposes "malicious" spending cuts to mandatory safety net programs like Medicare, student lending and nutritional assistance for low-income families, leaving Mnuchin to once again step in as defender-in-chief for the President.

Under the new Congress, the secretary has had a rocky start with House Democrats, including a tense classified briefing in January on the administration's decision to de-list three Russian firms with close ties to Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed the closed-door meeting as a "waste of time" and "one of the worst classified briefings" she's ever received during the Trump administration.

Speaking to reporters following the briefing, Mnuchin expressed dismay, saying he was "somewhat shocked" by Pelosi's comments, arguing he had spent close to an hour and a half answering questions by House lawmakers. Members left him waiting for more than an hour in a secure room due to floor votes.

A few weeks later, Mnuchin found himself in hot water again after refusing to testify before a House panel on a decision to bring more than 36,000 federal workers at the Internal Revenue Service back to work unpaid as the government shutdown dragged into tax season. Instead, the Treasury Department offered to have senior officials, including the deputy IRS commissioner, appear before the panel to answer questions, but not Mnuchin -- an offer the House panel ultimately declined.

The timing of the request for Mnuchin to testify by Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Richard Neal, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, also raised questions at the time whether some Democrats were hoping to politically capitalize on the fact that their request would have conflicted with a previously scheduled trip to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, where Mnuchin was expected to lead the US delegation. The White House, however, canceled the trip to the elite resort town in Switzerland shortly thereafter due to the government shutdown.

Neal, the only Democrat who has the power to request Trump's tax returns, cleared the air with Mnuchin over a telephone call a few days later, ending the debacle with the secretary extending his willingness to appear before the committee at a "mutually agreeable time" after the President's budget was released. The chairman of the tax-writing committee told CNN this week he is "still preparing" his case and has yet to set a deadline to request the president's tax returns.

The episode came amid intensifying pressure by congressional Democrats, who have sent numerous letters to the secretary since the start of the year asking for further details on the Trump administration's controversial decision to rescind sanctions on Rusal, the world's second-largest aluminum producer, as well as EN+ Group and JSC EuroSibEnergo.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to Mnuchin in late January citing press reports asking how he managed his own potential personal and professional conflicts of interest with a major Rusal shareholder, Len Blavatnik.

A second letter from California Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier also called into question how their relationship may have influenced the deal, with a Treasury spokesman at the time rebuking her concerns as "premised on false information."

Democrats have criticized the deal, arguing in their letter that Deripaska still retains "significant influence, if not de facto control, over En+, Rusal and ESE" through his associates and family members.

California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the House Financial Services, has also been in talks with Mnuchin to appear before her committee on the issue. Mnuchin had also declined to initially testify in February after Treasury failed to meet the panel's document request on the matter. The two have spoken by phone and have agreed to work together to find a time for him to appear before the committee.

The Democratic chairs of the House Financial Services, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees had sent a joint letter to Mnuchin, asking for a detailed accounting of the decision, noting "the terms of removal are unusual and many questions remain unanswered."

CNN's Ashley Killough contributed to this report.

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