WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) joined Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and other members of the Senate Banking Committee in writing to President Biden to express concern over his nomination of Sarah Raskin as Vice-Chair of Supervision on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

“As you are aware, members of the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (Banking) were compelled to deny a quorum for the markup scheduled for February 15, 2022, due to the simple fact that Ms. Raskin has continually failed to produce forthright answers to questions posed by committee members,” wrote the senators.

“. . . our actions to deny a quorum were not the result of Ms. Raskin’s radical public comments and beliefs about using federal financial supervisory powers to advance climate change policy. Rather, it was the continual evasion and lack of candor about her time on the board of Reserve Trust, a fintech trust company, where Ms. Raskin was a director from 2017 to 2019,” the senators continued. 

“. . . Ms. Raskin has continually provided vague or nonresponsive answers to committee questions regarding her past use of the ‘revolving door.’ Her lack of candor raises the question of whether Ms. Raskin leveraged her past experience and relationships within the Federal Reserve System to obtain preferential treatment for Reserve Trust. Specifically, Reserve Trust had its first application for a Federal Reserve Master Account denied, but subsequently approved following a phone call from Ms. Raskin to the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City,” continued the senators.

The senators listed several of Raskin’s obfuscations, including her failure to list her time and compensation at Reserve Trust on her committee questionnaire and her failure to answer repeated questions in her nomination hearing and in questions for the record about potential activities she undertook while at Reserve Trust to help the company obtain a Federal Reserve Master Account.

The senators asked Biden to direct Raskin to provide proper answers to certain questions about her past and to provide additional information on the process the Biden administration used to investigate Raskin’s background when nominating her.

“We share the same goal of honesty and transparency in government, especially among those nominated to the highest positions of your administration. However, without greater insight into Ms. Raskin’s past activities, we cannot, in good faith, support the advancement of her nomination process,” the senators concluded.

The letter is available here.