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Vanity Fair Profile on Elizabeth Warren: 'Geithner Hated Her

"Part of it was seen as personal..."

A new in-depth article in Vanity Fair profiles U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, broaching her time in Washington and her motivations to challenge Scott Brown for U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. The piece, entitled "The Woman Who Knew Too Much," also talks of President Obama's "betrayal" of her when he didn't appoint her to head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which she largely conceived and organized:

"By July 18, when Obama announced that he was passing Warren over, he did so after receiving petitions signed by several hundred thousand people and organizations urging him to appoint Warren as the country’s top consumer watchdog.

At the end of his remarks, Obama turned to Warren and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled gamely, though if there are kisses a woman can do without, this was one of them. A Judas kiss, some would say."

While her dissatisfaction in being passed over to head the C.F.P.B. may not be a secret, Suzanna Andrews's profile of Warren writes of the heated mutual contention between Warren and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. After a tense November 2009 hearing during which Warren grilled Geithner, Andrews writes:

“'Geithner hated her,' says a former administration official. Part of it was seen as personal because she had scorched him in public. But the whole thrust of her work on the oversight panel—getting the facts out to the public—was at odds with Geithner’s perceived conviction, shared by the Wall Street establishment, that the details of the banks’ TARP rescue should be hidden from public scrutiny whenever possible in order to give the banks time to recover, an assessment that a Treasury spokesperson disputes, insisting that 'Secretary Geithner initiated unprecedented disclosure requirements for financial institutions.'”

Aside from Republicans that deeply protested Warren chairing the C.F.P.B. let alone the bureau itself, Andrews writes that Warren's subtle opponents on the other side of the aisle included Geithner, White House Chief of Staff William Daley, and Dodd-Frank namesake former Sen. Christopher Dodd.

Following friction over the C.F.P.B., Andrews reveals Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer pushed Warren to run for Senate despite their own hypocrisy in supporting the anti-Wall Street candidate:

"Those most notable would be Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, who led the effort, which began in the late spring, to encourage Warren to leave Washington to run against Scott Brown, the Massachusetts Republican, who is up for re-election next year. Some speculated that they were doing the president’s dirty work, trying to rescue him from a tough decision. But others would note the gush of Wall Street donations these Democrats received for their 2010 elections: $6.2 million for Chuck Schumer, the most of any senator, and $4.7 million for Harry Reid, who would clock in as the third-highest beneficiary of Wall Street largesse in the Senate—after New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand—according to the Center for Responsive Politics."

In her challenge for the seat long held by Ted Kennedy, Warren has already raised $3.1 million since her official campaign announcement on September 14, and the race has been speculated to be one of the closest in 2012.

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