Amid reports that he’s actively sought to block progressive darling Elizabeth Warren from being appointed to head a soon-to-be-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sung her praises to reporters today. But when pressed, he stopped short of endorsing her or saying that her nomination would please him.
“It’s important to recognize that she is, I think, one of the most effective advocates for [financial] reform in the country,” Geithner said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast this morning. “She has enormous credibility…. She would be a very strong leader of this bureau, but that’s a choice the President will have to make.”
Geithner added that he’d not yet made an official recommendation to President Obama, but suggested one will be coming soon.
“We have not yet, we’re starting to talk through it, but we have not yet made a recommendation,” Geithner said.
Importantly, one of the other people on the White House’s short list is one of Geithner’s deputies, Deputy Secretary for Financial Services Michael Barr.
“We have some other appointments we’re going to have to make to replace existing heads of agencies, and we want to make sure that we bring in people to other agencies that bring experience and credibility, a little fresh perspective, so that we justify and earn the sort of promise of this legislation,” Geithner said.
