By David Lawder
STRESA, Italy (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday she believes the White House will move as soon as possible to appoint a new chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp to replace Martin Gruenberg, who tendered his resignation amid a sexual harassment scandal. .
Gruenberg, a Democrat, will stay on until a new chairman is confirmed by Congress to avoid a partisan deadlock in the FDIC’s governance that would hold up the Biden administration’s regulatory goal.
Yellen told reporters at the end of a meeting of G7 financial leaders in northern Italy that the appointment decision was up to the White House, “but I think they will want to get this done as quickly as possible.”
Reuters reported separately on Friday that a nomination decision could be made as early as next week.
Yellen told Reuters in an interview on Friday that the next chairman of the FDIC must “commit to solving the problem” after an independent investigation revealed widespread sexual harassment problems that prompted current chairman Martin Gruenberg to resign this week. She said the agency needed someone “who can come in from the outside and is credible in terms of his own past actions” on similar issues.
On Saturday, she walked back those comments somewhat, telling reporters that while the “most likely” nominee would come from outside the FDIC, she would not name a qualified candidate from within the agency.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Diane Craft)
