Last year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Demanded that Wells Fargo CEO John G. Stumpf be fired in the wake of the bank’s fake account scandal. She blasted him for making millions off a “scam,” saying, “You should resign … and you should be criminally investigated.”
Turns out, the firebrand senator isn’t pleased with Stumpf’s successor either.
At a Senate banking committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Warren argued that current Wells Fargo CEO Timothy J. Sloan should be fired too since he was part of the culture that encouraged employees to create millions of phony accounts for customers without their knowledge or consent.
“At best you were incompetent, at worst you were complicit,” Warren told Sloan on Tuesday. “Either way, you should be fired.”
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Warren got what she wanted from Stumpf, who’d blamed the bank’s fake account scandal on some 5,300 employees. He retired in October 2016 shortly after Warren called for him to lose his job. Sloan, a Wells Fargo veteran, took Stumpf’s place.
During the hearing on Tuesday, senators demanded that Sloan explain how the scandal had gotten so out of hand. He defended his role in the matter and touted the ongoing efforts to rehab the bank’s reputation and prevent another such incident.
“I’m not afraid to make hard decisions when it’s needed and I have the support of 270,000 people,” he said, referencing the bank’s workers. “That’s why I think I’m the right person.”
Warren was insistent that Sloan forfeit his role. “Wells Fargo needs to start over,” she said, “and that won’t happen until the bank rids itself of people like you who led it into this crisis.”