Steven Mnuchin, Tom Price Pass Committee Vote As Democrats Boycott

Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee made a last-minute rule change Wednesday morning to push two of President Trump's nominees out of committee in the face of a Democratic boycott.

Rep. Tom Price, nominated for secretary of Health and Human Services, and Tim Mnuchin, nominated for Treasury Secretary, were both approved by the committee without any of its Democrats present.

Democrats refused to participate in further debate and voting in light of recent revelations about the nominees.

"They on their own accord refused to participate in the exercise," Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, said about the Democrats. "They have nobody to blame but themselves."

But with a majority of Republican votes on the committee, a Democratic presence wouldn't have altered the outcome.

Price came under fire for purchasing stock purchases in a medical device company before introducing legislation that benefited that industry. During his testimony, Price said the stock purchases were open to anyone, but recent reports suggest this statement was inaccurate.

Mnuchin has come under fire for the policies of OneWest, a bank in which he was an investor, which he appears to have misrepresented. He claimed the bank did not practice robo-signing — the automatic authorization of mortgage documents — despite evidence that it did so.

Photo credit: Office of the President-elect/Gage Skidmore