Trump adviser: Labor retirement rule like Dred Scott decision

One of Donald Trump’s top Wall Street backers vowed that the GOP nominee would repeal a contentious new rule out of the Labor Department if elected.

Anthony Scaramucci, a managing partner of Skybridge Capital and a vocal Trump supporter, went so far as to compare Labor’s “fiduciary duty” rule to an 1857 Supreme Court ruling that found black people descended from slaves could not become American citizens.

{mosads}Scaramucci told InvestmentNews that the Labor regulation, which imposes new requirements on advisers for retirement accounts was one of the worst government decisions of the last “50 or 60” years.

He even went so far as to compare it to the infamous Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. In that 1857 ruling, the court found that black people descended from slaves could not become American citizens, and that the government could not curb slavery in new Western territories.

“It’s about like the Dred Scott decision,” Mr. Scaramucci told the publication. Scaramucci made his comments at an industry conference in Washington earlier this month.

“The left-leaning Department of Labor has made a decision to discriminate against a class of people who they deem to be adding no value,” he told the publication in a followup email. “They are judging what should happen in a free market and attempting to put financial advisers out of work. When market forces cyclically adjust again, they will be having congressional hearings about how big the mistake was to do this.”

The fiduciary rule was one of the most contentious regulatory projects to come out of the Obama administration in years. The financial industry was fiercely opposed to the rule, which establishes a requirement that investment advisers must solely consider the interests of their client when making retirement saving recommendations.

Backers of the rule argued that such a requirement would ensure that Americans are not being steered into pricey but poorly performing investments. But the industry has fought tooth and nail against it, arguing it would simply limit investments choices for many Americans, while imposing a burdensome new rule on the financial sector. Several industry groups have already taken legal action to challenge the rule.

Scaramucci is a member of Trump’s small business advisory council and has been a fundraiser for the candidate. He also previously helped raise funds for other Republican candidates, originally supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the 2016 campaign. He was national finance co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign.

Trump himself has been silent on this particular regulation, but in general he has had little positive to say about the Obama administration’s efforts to impose new rules on the financial sector.