WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's nominee to run the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, is likely to face tough questions about his vast financial holdings at a hearing next week by the Senate Banking Committee.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the panel, told reporters she had met with Warsh Thursday and urged him to disclose more information about his assets than was included in financial disclosure forms released earlier
this week. Warsh, a former top official at the Fed and a wealthy investor, listed financial assets worth well more than $100 million. The figures are given in ranges so a precise value wasn't disclosed.
Warsh has large stakes in several investment funds and owns a solo financial advisory firm, Vicarage LLC. He has pledged in ethics filings to sell those holdings and stop working as an adviser if he is confirmed as Fed chair. Yet he has not disclosed the values of all his investments through the funds, or the names of some of his clients.
“This is a real problem,” Warren said. “No one has gone forward in the Trump administration without disclosing fully their financial holdings."
It's the latest hurdle for Warsh, 55, who is already facing an unusually turbulent path toward the Fed chair position, which he has sought for at least a decade. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and member of the Banking panel, said this week he won’t vote for Warsh until a Department of Justice investigation into current Fed chair Jerome Powell is resolved. The stand-off threatens to delay Warsh’s confirmation until after Powell’s term as chair ends May 15.
But even if Warsh is confirmed, he will likely face ongoing pressure from Trump to cut the Fed's key interest rate despite the Iran war pushing inflation higher and many other policymakers expressing skepticism about cuts. And he could end up serving while Powell remains on the Fed's governing board, an uncomfortable arrangement that hasn’t occurred since the late 1940s.
Warsh was a member of the Fed's governing board from 2006 to 2011, and is married to Jane Lauder, the daughter of billionaire cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, a major Republican donor. He has also worked in finance and has made roughly $10 million as an advisor to billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller's family office, according to his disclosure form.
Warren said Warsh declined in their meeting to disclose more information about his holdings, “which, frankly, raises more concerns.” She added that his extensive investments are “a red flag surrounded by fireworks and sparklers.”
Warsh said in his disclosures that “pre-existing confidentiality” agreements prevent him from specifying the size of individual holdings or in some cases what they are. For example, he owns a stake in Polymarket, the prediction betting market, but did not say how large it is. He said he would comply with all ethics requirements by selling those investments if confirmed.
Also Thursday, all 11 Democrats on the Banking Committee called for next week's hearing to be postponed until the DOJ drops the investigation into cost overruns for a $2.5 billion Fed building renovation project and Powell's role in it, as well as an effort by Trump to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook.
Both moves “appear to be part of the Trump Administration’s broader effort to take control of the Fed,” the letter said.
