Biden Accepts Kazakh-American Lawyer's Withdrawal From Race For US Comptroller Of Currency

Sumaira FH Published December 08, 2021 | 03:50 AM

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th December, 2021) President Joe Biden said that he has accepted Saule Omarova's request to withdraw from the nomination to become the next Comptroller of the Currency.

"I have accepted Saule Omarova's request to withdraw her name from nomination for the Office of the Comptroller of Currency," Biden said in a statement circulated via Twitter on Tuesday.

Had she been confirmed, Omarova would have coordinated the work done by the Federal Reserve with a staff of some 3,500 people.

A native of the former Soviet Union, Omarova faced criticism from Republicans and some Democrats as well as� banking lobbyists who saw her alleged Marxist-leanings and policy ideas about the financial and energy sectors as a threat to the US economy.

Biden said he nominated Omarova for the post in banking regulation mainly because of her "deep expertise in financial regulation" aside from long-standing career in the private sector as well as academic credentials.

A Kazakh-American attorney and public policy adviser, she had attended Moscow State University, and later Northwestern University as well as University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.

"Saule would have brought invaluable insight and perspective to our important work on behalf of the American people," Biden said. "But unfortunately, from the very beginning of her nomination, Saule was subjected to inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale."

Omarova, in a letter to the White House also circulated on Twitter, said it was "no longer tenable" for her to seek the position of Comptroller of the currency.

Central to the allegations against Omarova was a 2020 paper she wrote about the ways the Federal Reserve could use its own digital currency, which central bankers had already begun to consider creating. Critics used that to accuse her of wanting to replace the banking industry's functions with services provided by the Federal Reserve.