Kevin Warsh, Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, speaks during the Sohn Investment Conference in New York City, U.S., May 8, 2017.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
An expected Senate hearing on the nomination of Kevin Warsh for Federal Reserve chair has been delayed, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC on Thursday evening.
Warsh had been set to appear before the Senate Banking Committee on April 16. That won’t happen, but the hearing is still expected soon, the person said, requesting anonymity as the details have not been made public by the committee.
The committee’s rules require that it give a week’s notice before the hearing is held, and the panel first needs to collect paperwork from the nominee, including financial disclosures. The banking committee has yet to receive Warsh’s paperwork, according to three people familiar with the Senate process.
The committee has not formally noticed the hearing. The deadline for doing so was Thursday. Punchbowl earlier reported the delay to Warsh’s hearing.
Warsh’s finances may be especially complicated. He is married to Estée Lauder cosmetics heir Jane Lauder, whose net worth is estimated at $1.9 billion, according to Forbes.
Financial disclosures filed in 2006, when Warsh was nominated for an earlier stint at the Fed, listed nearly 1,200 assets, the vast majority of which were held by his wife.
Since leaving the Fed in 2011, Warsh has spent 15 years working for investor Stanley Druckenmiller’s family office, where he led venture investments into tech firms, including Palantir.
President Donald Trump in January announced Warsh’s nomination to succeed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term as the Fed’s top official expires May 15.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox Business in an interview on Thursday that he is “highly confident” that Warsh will be in place by the end of Powell’s term as chair.
While the Trump administration appears confident about Warsh’s confirmation, it will be difficult for him to advance beyond a hearing unless Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., drops a blockade of the nomination.
Tillis is refusing to vote for any Fed nominee until the Department of Justice drops a criminal probe into Powell. Tillis and Powell have called that investigation a politically motivated effort to undermine the Fed’s independence.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro told CNBC on Wednesday that she plans to move forward with the investigation. That leaves Warsh’s path beyond the hearing unclear.
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