(Feb 4): US Federal Reserve governor Stephen Miran has stepped down from his post leading the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, according to a Trump administration official.
Miran, who has been serving at the Fed since September, took unpaid leave from his White House job when joining the central bank, suggesting that he could return to the CEA after his tenure at the Fed concluded.
That unusual arrangement drew criticism from Senate Democrats, who said it would make Miran too beholden to US President Donald Trump and threatened to undermine the Fed’s credibility because he didn’t fully sever ties to the White House.
“While I took an unpaid leave of absence from the Council to come to the Federal Reserve, I promised the Senate that if I should stay on the Board past January, I would formally depart the Council,” Miran said Tuesday (Feb 3) in a letter to the president. “I believe it is important to stay true to my word while I continue to perform the job at the Federal Reserve to which you and the Senate appointed me.”
In a letter earlier Tuesday, Senate Banking Committee Democrats called on Miran to step down from the Fed to end what they cast as an “improper arrangement”.
Trump nominated Miran to the Fed Board last year on a temporary basis to fill a seat vacated early by a Biden-administration appointee Adriana Kugler in August.
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That term expired in January but Miran can remain at the Fed until a successor is confirmed by the Senate.
Trump last week announced his plans to nominate former Fed governor Kevin Warsh to serve as the Fed’s next chair and expectations are he’ll soon appoint him to Miran’s seat.
But getting Warsh’s confirmation through the Senate could be a lengthy process. Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, has threatened to hold up all Fed nominees over a Justice Department probe into Jerome Powell and the Fed’s ongoing headquarters renovation. Neither Trump nor the DOJ has indicated plans to wind down the Powell probe.
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Miran’s plans to leave the CEA were first reported by Barron’s.
Uploaded by Arion Yeow
