Sarah Bloom Raskin Withdraws as Biden’s Pick for Top Fed Banking Regulator

Sarah Bloom Raskin, the Biden administration’s nominee for  most powerful banking regulator seat, has withdrawn her nomination Tuesday (March 15) after months of turmoil and opposition from Republicans along with one key Democrat, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The withdrawal will be a severe blow for Biden and his administration, which has struggled to get its financial nominees through the Senate, which is evenly divided.

“Despite her readiness — and despite having been confirmed by the Senate with broad, bipartisan support twice in the past — Sarah was subject to baseless attacks from industry and conservative interest groups,” Biden said in a written statement, WSJ reported.

Biden nominated Raskin to be the Federal Reserve’s vice chairwoman of banking supervision, which plays a key role supervising the largest U.S. financial firms.

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, an important vote, decided Monday that he wasn’t able to support Raskin because of her views on climate change and how to address that issue.

Raskin’s nomination has been a flashpoint of controversy in the government, with weeks going by in which Republicans refused to confirm her, at one point also refusing to attend a crucial committee vote.

This added to a gridlock for Biden’s whole agenda on finance. But Raskin says her withdrawal might help move things along.

“If I step away from this confirmation process, there can be no excuse left for a continued boycott of the Constitution’s “advice and consent” process and the Senate’s corresponding refusal to attend to our nation’s real economic needs,” Raskin wrote.

Read more: FinTech Reserve Trust Founder Says Fed Nominee Raskin Allegations ‘Completely False’

PYMNTS wrote that there’d been other hurdles to clearing Raskin. One of the incidents involved her reported past conduct at a nongovernment job.

Reports had come out saying that, as Raskin was working with Reserve Trust, a Colorado FinTech working in payment processing, she may have used her previous government contacts with the Obama administration to raise issues with the denial of a request for a master account for the company.

Dennis Gingold, co-founder of Reserve Trust, said Raskin’s contact had been good and appropriate, though Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, said he had a phone call with the Kansas City Fed president saying otherwise.