Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan faces an angry Congress

Sloan's bipartisan grilling got off to a tense start on Tuesday. Chairman Maxine Waters, a Democrat, said Sloan hasn't been able to keep Wells Fargo (WFC) out of trouble. She asked if the bank should be "downsized."

"Is Wells Fargo simply too big to manage?" Waters asked.

"No, we're not," Sloan responded.

Ranking member Patrick McHenry, a Republican, also displayed frustration. He asked Sloan if the scandals were over, or if more negative headlines would surface.

"I can't control the media," Sloan said. "There's nothing else that I'm aware of that we haven't disclosed."

Sloan tried to convince Congress that Wells Fargo has abandoned the aggressive sales tactics that led to the creation of millions of fake accounts and other issues, such as charging thousands of customers for auto insurance they didn't need and imposing unwarranted mortgage fees on homeowners.

"Our corporate culture has substantially improved," he said in his opening remarks.

Sloan outlined leadership shakeups at the company and new measures aimed at curtailing risk, while conceding that the bank has more work to do.

"Doing right does not stop with simply repairing harm and rebuilding trust," he said.

His assurances seem unlikely to ease political pressure on the bank.

Wells Fargo remains embroiled in legal trouble on the federal and state level, and impatience with the pace of the bank's restitution and turnaround efforts is growing.

And the Federal Reserve has not yet removed the unprecedented asset cap it placed on Wells Fargo in early 2018 for "widespread consumer abuse." This keeps the bank from growing.

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