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Justin G. Muzinich

Official · Treasury

Type
Person
Role
Official · Treasury
Updated
  • Pandemic-program role: Deputy Treasury Secretary during the CARES Act Title IV programs; ProPublica (June 2, 2020) reported that Treasury's responsibilities "have fallen largely" to him and that he was personally involved in crafting the Federal Reserve's emergency lending programs.
  • Institution · office: Treasury · Office of the Deputy Secretary · Type: political(PAS)
  • Tenure (relief-relevant): Dec 12, 2018 – Jan 20, 2021 (CARES Act enacted Mar 27, 2020)

The job (role mechanics)

  • Level / appointment: PAS Senate-confirmed; Executive Schedule Level II (EX-II). Confirmed Dec 11, 2018 by a 55–44 Senate vote; sworn in Dec 12, 2018.
  • Reports to: Secretary of the Treasury (Steven T. Mnuchin).
  • Core responsibility: Treasury's chief operating officer / second-in-command; oversees Department-wide operations and, in the pandemic, the deployment of Title IV ESF funds backstopping Fed facilities.
  • Pay: Executive Schedule Level II = $199,300 (2021), per the OPM 2021-EX table and 5 U.S.C. 5313.
  • Expectations / mandate: Run Treasury day-to-day; under CARES Act Title IV, help direct the $500B ESF allocation (airline/national-security loans plus equity backstops for Fed 13(3) facilities).
  • Tenure norm: Serves at the pleasure of the President (political appointee). Departed Jan 20, 2021 at the end of the Trump I administration.

Who they are

Justin George Muzinich is an American businessman and lawyer, the son of George M. Muzinich, founder of the asset manager Muzinich & Co.; he sits on the Council on Foreign Relations Board of Directors (Wikipedia, secondary).

Education

  • Harvard College, B.A. (2000); Harvard Business School, M.B.A. (2005); Yale Law School, J.D. (2007) (Wikipedia, secondary; ProPublica names the same three schools).

Career before

  • Morgan Stanley, mergers & acquisitions group; later EMS Capital
  • President, Muzinich & Co. (family investment firm)
  • Adjunct, Columbia Business School (2014–2016)
  • Policy Director, Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign (tax/economic policy)
  • Counselor to the Secretary, U.S. Treasury (2017), working on the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act before his elevation to Deputy Secretary (Wikipedia, secondary; ProPublica)

Role in the pandemic relief programs

Mnuchin held the CARES Act Title IV authority; ProPublica's June 2, 2020 report described Muzinich as the Treasury official running the bailout's Title IV / Federal Reserve facility work day to day.

Conflict-of-interest reporting (attributed): ProPublica (Jun 2, 2020) reported that while Muzinich helped run the bailout, his family's firm, Muzinich & Co. (a junk-bond specialist founded by his father), stood to benefit from Treasury/Fed support for corporate-credit markets. ProPublica reported that he had owned a stake worth at least $60 million when he entered government in 2017 and had transferred it to his father in exchange for a long-dated note. It quoted ethics specialist Kathleen Clark calling the arrangement "something akin to a fake divestiture." Per ProPublica and Wikipedia, Muzinich had agreed (July 2018) to strengthen his recusal to cover matters where the family company is a party, and his arrangements were disclosed to and approved by the Treasury Ethics Office and the Office of Government Ethics.

Documents written or signed

  • Remarks, 2020 U.S. Treasury Market Conference (Deputy Secretary; treasury.gov press release SM1138)
  • The joint Treasury–Fed announcement of up to $2.3 trillion in new financing (treasury.gov SM968, April 9, 2020) issued during his tenure as Deputy Secretary; signatory authority for the ESF backstops rested with the Secretary.

Career after / where they are now

  • Returned to Muzinich & Co., where the Wikipedia entry (secondary) lists him as CEO and a member of the Board of Owners.

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

Sources (first-party)

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