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WASHINGTON – Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked why Wells Fargo was "involved in caging children" during a hearing in the House with the bank's CEO on Tuesday.
"I am interested in human rights abuses and environmental disasters, which some say are funded by your bank, Wells Fargo," 29-year-old CEO Tim Sloan told a Congressman at a hearing House Financial Services Committee practices the bank.
She then cited an article that linked the bank to private jails, for-profit immigration detention centers, payday loan schemes and accused Wells Fargo of "holding a large portion of the bond debt strangling efforts of Puerto Rico to get out of its financial crisis. "
"Is it true that Wells Fargo has invested or financed in some of these industries?" Asked the New York Democrat.
Sloan responded that the bank was retiring from two private penitentiary companies – GEO Group and CoreCivic – one exit being finalized and the other being completed.
The CEO could not remember what separation had been made. Both companies were involved in detention of immigration.
"Why was the bank involved in caging children and funding for caging children?", Then asked Ocasio-Cortez.
Sloan surprise did not answer his question directly.
"I do not know how to answer this question because we were not," he said. "For a while, we helped finance one of the companies. We are no longer. I am not aware of the specific statements you make, but we did not participate directly. "
Ocasio-Cortez tried to strengthen the link. "Okay, so these companies run private detention centers run by ICE, which is involved in caging children, but I will continue," she said.
She quickly asked if Wells Fargo should pay for cleaning up the environment when one of the bank – funded projects, like the Dakota Access Pipeline, goes bad.
"So, hypothetically, there was a leak in the Dakota access pipeline, why should not Wells Fargo pay for the cleanup, since it financed the construction of the pipeline itself? ? ", She asked.
Sloan responded in the negative by explaining that his bank does not operate the pipeline.
Ocasio-Cortez asked why Wells Fargo funded the pipeline "while it was generally considered ecologically unstable."
"Again, the reason we were one of the 17 or 19 banks that funded this is that our team looked at the environmental impact and that we concluded that it was safe." "It was a risk we were willing to take," Sloan said.
And with that, Ocasio-Cortez ran out of time.
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