Kevin Warsh, the former Federal Reserve governor chosen by Donald Trump to lead the central bank, has submitted financial disclosures that suggest he holds assets worth well over $100m.
The document is required for his nomination to advance through the Senate, beginning with a yet-to-be-scheduled hearing.
While it is difficult to estimate net worth from US government ethics forms because assets are valued in broad and sometimes open-ended categories, Warsh’s includes two investments worth more than $50m each in the Juggernaut Fund LP and $10.2m in consulting fees from the investment office of Stanley Druckenmiller, the Wall Street giant.
The document filed overnight with the US office of government ethics is complex. The Juggernaut Fund investments, for example, come with the caveat that the underlying assets “are not disclosed due to pre-existing confidentiality agreements”, with a promise from Warsh that “I will divest this asset if confirmed.”
They are among a series of holdings, including around two dozen in THSDFS LLC, some individually worth as much as $5m, where details were withheld and which Warsh also pledged to divest if confirmed.
Heather Jones, the OGE analyst who signed off on Warsh’s document, noted those commitments in her review and said that “once the filer divests these assets, he will be in compliance” with the Ethics in Government Act.
The document lists dozens of other assets without stating the value, mostly focused, judging by the names, in artificial intelligence and crypto, among other sectors. It was not immediately clear why no value was listed, but OGE rules do not require values to be included for securities worth less than $1,000.
Those holdings include Cafe X, described as a robotic coffee bar platform; a “bionic movement-enhancing wearable clothing” firm called Cionic; Blast, notated as “yield-generating Ethereum layer two”; and Contraline, a “reversible male contraceptive solution”.
The holdings of Warsh’s spouse, Jane Lauder, whose family interests include the Estée Lauder cosmetics company and who Forbes estimates has a net worth of around $1.9bn, were also included. Some of Lauder’s municipal bond holdings were valued simply at “over $1 million”.
Warsh’s liabilities appear comparatively limited, including a 2015 mortgage of up to $5m from JP Morgan Chase at 2.75%, a revolving line of credit of up to $5m from PNC Bank listed at a rate of around 6%, and capital commitments of $1,950,000 to THSDFS LLC, one of the interests he has promised to divest.
The filing of Warsh’s paperwork with the ethics office is a key step in his expected confirmation to succeed the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, although the timing remains uncertain.
A spokesperson for the Senate banking committee on Monday declined to comment about the committee’s plans for handling the nomination. Committee rules require five business days’ notice to schedule a hearing once the needed paperwork is in hand, making next week the earliest possible timing for Warsh to appear before the committee.
Even once the hearing is scheduled, it is unclear how quickly Warsh could be confirmed by the full Senate. A key Republican lawmaker has vowed to block Warsh’s confirmation until the conclusion of a Department of Justice investigation into Powell for his oversight of renovations to the Fed’s headquarters in Washington DC. There is little indication of progress so far on that matter.
Though a federal judge quashed the DoJ’s subpoenas, finding the investigation to be a thinly disguised effort to pressure Powell to lower interest rates or resign, the department has said it will appeal that decision.
Powell’s tenure as head of the Fed ends on 15 May, and he has said he will continue to fill the role on a “pro tem” basis if Warsh is not confirmed and in place by that time.
