Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen made the rounds of top Republicans in Congress and the White House as the Trump era began, her newly released calendar shows.
Long criticized by House Republicans for her close ties to and frequent visits to the Obama Treasury Department, Yellen appears to be maintaining the same relations with the Trump administration. She had a phone conversation with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin shortly after he was sworn in and also had lunch with him at the Treasury later in February.
Yellen also took the trip to Pennsylvania Avenue to have lunch with Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser.
In February, Yellen spoke exclusively with Republican lawmakers, including the chairmen of the Senate and House committees with oversight of the Fed: Sen. Mike Crapo of Utah, at whose office she had a meeting, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, a frequent critic. She also had breakfast with Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees bank policy.
Otherwise, all of Yellen’s individual meetings involved central bankers or multinational organizations, according to her calendar, except for a call with Larry Fink of the investment firm BlackRock.
Yellen’s outreach to Republicans comes as the Fed faces the prospect of legislation that she views as a threat to the central bank’s independence.
“Our independence is under some threat,” she said Monday in an interview at the University of Michigan, referring specifically to two Republican bills that would require greater transparency from the Fed and greater oversight of its monetary policy decisions.
For their part, Republicans have said that the bigger threat to the Fed’s independence comes not from Congress, but from the executive branch. In past hearings, they have cited Yellen’s frequent meetings with the Obama administration as cause for concern that the central bank was not sufficiently independent of Obama’s team in regulating the financial system and setting interest rates.
