Lummis Questions Federal Nominee Raskin Over Suspicious Influence Peddling

U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) Thursday pressed one of President Joe Biden’s nominees for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors over her conduct in helping Reserve Trust, a non-bank trust company, to obtain access to the Federal Reserve’s payment system known as a “master account.” That access is a privilege exclusively reserved for banks and Reserve Trust was the first, and currently the only, non-bank FinTech company to ever obtain master account access. Lummis, during the hearing Wednesday, said Sarah Raskin joined the board of Reserve Trust in 2017, and this non-bank was initially denied access to a master account that same year.

According to a media release from Lummis’ office, Raskin made calls on behalf of Reserve Trust to the Federal Reserve, and Reserve Trust’s application for a master account was subsequently approved in 2018. Raskin was compensated for her position on the Reserve Trust board with stock, which she later sold to one of her coworkers at the Treasury Department, Amias Gerety, for $1.4 million. Gerety now works for QED Investors, which today owns a controlling interest in Reserve Trust. The following is a brief exchange between Lummis and nominee Raskin.

The entire exchange between Lummis and Raskin is available here.