A senior Democrat has called for US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin to face an ethics violation investigation over comments he made plugging The Lego Batman Movie, a film financed by one of Mnuchin’s companies.
In a letter to Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub, Ron Wyden, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate finance committee, expressed concern over comments made by Mnuchin during a live Q&A with the political news website Axios, in which Mnuchin called on the public to “send all your kids to Lego Batman”.
Mnuchin is the co-founder of RatPac-Dune, a production company that funded Lego Batman as well as films such as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. As part of an ethics agreement made on becoming treasury secretary, Mnuchin has promised to divest his holdings in the company within four months of being confirmed by the senate and to “not participate personally and substantially in any matter that has a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of the entity”.
In his letter, Wyden states that the Senate finance committee has seen no evidence that Mnuchin has divested his interests in RatPac-Dune. “I am concerned that Sec Mnuchin’s comments may be seen to have a predictable effect on the financial interests [of RatPac-Dune]”, Wyden wrote. “I request that you review Sec Mnuchin’s comments and report any findings to me and the Treasury department.”
Mnuchin’s comments came in response to a question from an Axios reader asking for a film recommendation. The treasury secretary acknowledged that ethics laws prohibit him from endorsing products that may benefit his financial interests, before seemingly doing so anyway.
“I’m not allowed to promote anything that I’m involved in,” he said. “So I just want to have the legal disclosure; you’ve asked me the question, and I am not promoting any product,” Mnuchin said. “But you should send all your kids to Lego Batman.”
In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the Treasury department said: “It was a lighthearted moment and comment. Secretary Mnuchin directly acknowledged and understood the ethics law involved.”
Mnuchin is not the only member of the Trump administration to have been accused of ethics violations. In February the White House was forced to rebuke Trump aide Kellyanne Conway for urging the public to buy the fashion products of the president’s daughter Ivanka, after the department store Nordstrom decided to drop her brand.
Released last moth, the Lego Batman Movie proved popular with both the public and critics, with Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw describing it as relentlessly, consistently funny. To date the film has a worldwide gross of over $290m.
