The Treasury Department’s inspector general told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer it will look for “indications of employee misconduct” in the decision to delay a new $20 bill that features Harriet Tubman.
Acting Inspector General Rich Delmar wrote to Schumer, D-N.Y., in response to Schumer’s June 19 request that Delmar examine the delay “including any involvement in the decision by the White House.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Congress last month it will delay rolling out the new bill, which would replace Andrew Jackson, the nation’s 7th President, with Tubman, an abolitionist. Mnuchin said the Tubman $20 would not be placed in circulation until 2028.
Mnuchin said the Treasury needed more time to implement new security features on the bill.
Democrats criticized the move and suspected the Trump Administration of interference.
Delmar told Schumer the office is already conducting an audit of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and whether it is properly implementing counterfeit deterrence features as well as new features for the visually impaired.
The audit, Delmar said, will include those involved in the $20 redesign process.
“If in the course of our audit work we discover indications of employee misconduct or other matters that warrant a referral to our Office of Investigations, we will do so expeditiously,” Delmar wrote to Schumer.
Schumer praised the move in a statement Monday.
“There are no women, there are no people of color on our paper currency today, even though they make up a significant majority of our population, and the previous administration’s plan to put New Yorker Harriet Tubman, on the $20 note was a long overdue way to recognize that disparity, and rectify it,” Schumer said. “The motivation for the Trump administration’s decision to delay the release of the new note has not been credibly explained, and the inspector general’s review must get to the bottom of this.”
