Democrats Batter Bank Regulator Over F.D.I.C.’s ‘Toxic’ Workplace Culture

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Martin Gruenberg is still the leader of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, an agency that supervises U.S. banks, but after a bipartisan grilling on Wednesday by members of a House committee overseeing bank regulators, he appeared to be hanging on by a thread. Democrats expressed dismay over his responses to the crisis at his agency, after a scathing report of a culture of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination. One congresswoman appeared to call for him to resign, as Republicans have been doing for months. “Personally, I do not have confidence that you can continue to lead in this role,” Representative Ayanna S. Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, told Mr. Gruenberg during an exchange. “I am so tired of white men failing up.” In a bruising session that lasted more than three hours, committee members repeatedly asked Mr. Gruenberg what he planned to do to change his behavior in response to reports that he had berated employees and created an environment in which people were afraid to communicate with him. (Two other federal bank regulators, the acting comptroller of the currency, Michael Hsu, and the Federal Reserve vice chair, Michael Barr, also offered testimony on bank regulatory matters, but much of the committee’s focus was on the F.D.I.C.)