Hearings to examine the nominations of Jonathan Greenstein, of New York, to be a Deputy Under Secretary, and Donald Korb, of Ohio, to be Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service and an Assistant General Counsel, both of the Department of the Treasury.
2025-09-10
Source: Congress.gov
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This meeting will come to order. I want to thank our nominees, Mr. Greenstein and Mr. Korb, for being here today. We will first hear from Jonathan Greenstein, who is nominated to serve as the Deputy Under Secretary for International Finance at Treasury. This position deals with matters pertaining to international finance, economic development, bilateral and regional economic engagement, and international debt. If confirmed, Mr. Greenstein will be responsible for ensuring the United States remains a leader in international organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These organizations, while important, have suffered from mission creep in recent years, expanding their focus far beyond their core mandates. I welcome Mr. Greenstein's thoughts on how we can return these organizations to their respective original missions. I also look forward to hearing his views on how the Treasury Department can effectively protect against currency manipulation to ensure other nations do not gain unfair competitive advantage in international trade. Next, we will hear from Donald Korb, who is nominated to serve as Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service. The Chief Counsel of the IRS is the top legal officer and advisor to the Commissioner on all matters relating to the interpretation, administration, and enforcement of tax laws. Mr. Korb knows the position well, having served in the role of Chief Counsel from 2004 to 2008. I'll also note that his previous nomination was unanimously approved by this committee. That previous experience provided Mr. Korb firsthand insight into the importance of fair and impartial interpretation of our tax laws and assurance that taxpayer rights are strictly protected. The agency will be well served by having a steady hand who understands these duties in one of its most senior positions. Mr. Korb is among the most highly respected tax lawyers in the country.
I trust that his integrity and judgment will lead him to focus on how to best serve the American taxpayer, enforce the law with integrity and fairness for all, and build confidence in the IRS. I also look forward to working with him, if confirmed, to ensure that the tax provisions in the one big beautiful bill are effectively and properly implemented and promptly. Thank you again for our nominees for their time today. And with that, I recognize Ranking Member Wyden for his opening remarks. RANKING MEMBER WYDEN Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We're going to focus today on two important issues, IRS Chief Counsel and Deputy Undersecretary at the Treasury Department. I'm going to begin with Mr. Korb up for the Chief Counsel job, one of only two Senate-confirmed positions at the IRS. Now, he has 50 years under his belt as a tax attorney. He served as IRS chief counsel under George W. Bush. So I want it understood his experience, in my view, in tax law is not at issue. I do want to focus on some things that he said during his meetings with the bipartisan committee staff. Staff had questions for Mr. Korb about taxpayer privacy violations. This is an area, and the chairman and I have talked about this often, that I just believe consistently gets short shrift. And this is especially of concern now, given that the Trump administration is weaponizing the IRS as it snatches people off the streets and launches politically motivated investigations of those that the Trump administration sees as adversaries. Amid that context, the recent resignation of a career IRS official who served as acting commissioner came up
Mr. Korb said that the individual should have been shot for his decision to resign. He also said that all the senior career officials who made the decision to leave the IRS afterwards did so because they wanted to show off their woke friends. These are comments to me that raise real questions with respect to a nominee having a political agenda. Let me also note that the nominee praised Mr. Billy Long, who practically was gone before he got there, which was something that I and others warned about when he was before the committee. I don't expect to agree with everybody that Donald Trump puts in charge of tax policy, but I do feel strongly that the top lawyer at IRS ought to be somebody who can do the job fairly. So we've certainly got some questions to look at. And one after the other, the Trump nominees sit before the committee, tell us what they're going to do to follow the law and do what's right. The reality is, though, there is a big gap between what they say when they come in the committee and what they do. And the administration nominees consistently violate the law and gobble up power for Donald Trump and weaponize it against people who have no power to really defend themselves. So we've got some issues to talk about with respect to Mr. Korb, and I'm going to let him make his response to what he said to the bipartisan staff, because I think I've made my point.
Next up, Mr. Chairman, just very briefly, Mr. Jonathan Greenstein. He is going to be considered for Under Secretary of Treasury for International Finance. This is a job that deals with complicated global markets. I think it is well understood that I am very troubled by the Trump trade policy in this country. You know, once again, we're hearing from stores that their prices are going up, and it's due to tariffs. and certainly the Treasury will be asked about that this morning. He's certainly, again, somebody who's been in the building, as it's said, so he's probably familiar with the complete disaster that is Donald Trump's trade and economic policy.
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