Warren grills Fed chair over colleague’s private dinner with Wall Street bankers

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh on Wednesday over his handling of an investigation into a top Fed official’s private dinner with Wall Street bankers.

At a Wednesday hearing held by the Senate Banking Committee, Warren pressed Warsh for answers about Fed Vice Chair of Supervision Michelle Bowman’s attendance of dinner hosted by Bank of America on June 17.

The dinner took place just hours after the Fed concluded its June monetary policy meeting, at which Bowman and other top bank officials voted to keep interest rates steady.

Fed officials, however, are banned from publicly discussing monetary policy for a roughly two-week “blackout” period before and after each Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.

“At this closed-door dinner, she reportedly spoke about both monetary policy topics and regulatory policy. Now, I’ve called on the inspector general to review her conduct, but you’re the guy in charge. As chair, you set the tone on culture,” Warren, the committee’s top Democrat, told Warsh.

Warsh repeatedly declined to say whether he spoke to Bowman about the incident or whether she discussed issues covered under the blackout period, adding that he would leave the investigation to the Fed inspector general and stay out of the way.

“Out of an enormous respect for him, his investigation, what he chooses to do with it, I’m going to leave it to him to do without trying to micromanage that,” Warsh said.

“Did you care enough to ask? How can you be chair and not ask your own vice chair whether or not she violated the blackout period, violated the law?” Warren shot back.

Warsh said he believed “it’d be inappropriate for me to prejudge facts that are being discovered by an independent actor.”

“How can you prejudge them if you don’t even ask?” Warren replied.

In a statement, Bowman said “I did not share my views on monetary policy.”

“I have consistently complied with all applicable FOMC and ethics rules and remain firmly committed to doing so,” she said.

Warsh’s appearance before the Banking Committee comes less than two months after he was confirmed by the Senate by a 51-45 vote, with only Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) crossing the aisle to support him. His Wednesday testimony followed a Tuesday hearing with the House Financial Services Committee, the first of the Fed chair’s mandatory twice-yearly appearances before both panels.

Tags

Bank of America

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren

Fed

Federal Open Market Committee

federal reserve

inspector general

John Fetterman

John Fetterman

Kevin Warsh

Kevin Warsh

Michelle Bowman

Michelle Bowman

Senate Banking Committee

Wall Street

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