President Donald Trump intends to nominate attorney Jonathan McKernan as the Treasury’s domestic finance chief, a surprising move given his previous hiring to manage the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement Friday that McKernan has been working as an advisor to the Treasury Department while awaiting confirmation of the CFPB role. McKernan, a former board member of the Federal Posens Insurance Corp., held a Senate confirmation hearing at the position earlier this year.
According to the Treasury statement, “McKernan has become an integral part of the Secretary’s senior team.” “His ongoing service with the Treasury will ensure that his experience and expertise best advances the president’s U.S. first agenda.”
The position of deputy minister needs to be confirmed by the Senate. A Treasury spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on McKernan’s nomination to lead the CFPB nomination.
McKernan has been hosting meetings with the Fed and other banking institutions as the Treasury Department plays a bigger role in simplifying oversight and coordinating plans to simplify regulations, according to Bloomberg News. People familiar with the discussion said at the time that the department planned to lead recommendations on the formulation of policy agenda for financial rules.
Domestic financial work is one of the three deputy ministers of the Ministry of Finance, as well as supervision in international and terrorist areas. Domestic financial directors oversee debt management and the smooth operation of the $29 trillion treasury market.
Nellie Liang, a former Fed official who served as deputy secretary in the Biden administration, played a key role in exploring ways to strengthen liquidity and transparency in debt transactions. This work also requires interaction with financial regulators around the world and linking with Wall Street.
The pending nominations make the CFPB’s future path. The union law application for representatives of the Consumer Bureau staff estimates that about 1,500 of the 1,700 employees of the CFPB may be fired. A federal judge said last month that the CFPB could not continue laying off employees, and the court weighed whether the termination would violate an earlier injunction and prevent the agency from closure.
At the FDIC, McNen repeatedly pushed for more oversight of large asset managers, saying their size and centralized ownership could have an inappropriate impact on the management and strategy of Bank of America. His efforts have won the support of former FDIC board member Rohit Chopra, who previously led the CFPB.
McKernan also oversees a task force responsible for independent third-party reviews of the regulatory body’s workplace culture following an investigation conducted by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. The law firm’s report found credible allegations of “sexual harassment, discrimination and other interpersonal misconduct.”
This article was generated from the Automation News Agency feed without the text being modified.
