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Press Release | September 30, 2021

Powell And Vice Chairs Transacted Millions In 2020, While Brainard Made No Trades

Ethics in GovernmentFederal ReserveRevolving Door
Powell And Vice Chairs Transacted Millions In 2020, While Brainard Made No Trades

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Max Moran, moran@therevolvingdoorproject.org

Today, the Revolving Door Project published an analysis of financial disclosure forms filed by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles, Vice Chair Richard Clarida, and the sole Democrat on the Board of Governors, Lael Brainard.

The analysis finds that all three members of the Board of Governors leadership team disclosed multi-million dollar financial transactions during 2020, including in markets affected by the Fed’s unprecedented market interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Brainard made no transactions whatsoever, meaning that she avoided any potential conflicts of interest in her policymaking.

Read the full analysis here.

Revolving Door Project Personnel Team Research Director Max Moran issued the following statement:

“The fact that the Fed’s current leadership team made or benefitted from multimillion dollar transactions contextualizes what we’ve seen at the Boston and Dallas regional banks: Chair Powell has facilitated a broad culture of lax ethical practices at the highest levels of the nation’s central bank. This should not surprise anyone. The entire strategy of the Carlyle Group, Powell’s former private equity firm, is to exploit insider government contacts and the revolving door. In the wake of unprecedented ethics scandals leading to an all-time low in public trust in the Fed, President Biden should consider that the only Democrat on the Board avoided even the perception of any potential conflict of interest as the Fed rushed to backstop the economy.”

The Revolving Door Project’s prior writing on the Federal Reserve and Jerome Powell can be found here.

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Ethics in GovernmentFederal ReserveRevolving Door

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