During yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing for Scott Bessent, Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, the topic of cryptocurrency barely came up. However, the one mention it received related to anti money laundering (AML). He confirmed he does not see the need for a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) and is in favor of the independence of the Federal Reserve.
On the topic of AML, Democrat Senator Ben Luján asked whether Congress will have more transparency over suspicious activity reports at FinCEN. Mr Bessent replied, “There is a sleeve of Treasury called TFI, terrorism finance, that deals with this within FinCEN. And I believe that we have to have a 2025 approach to – as you and I talked about – digital currencies and all branches of government. So yes.”
Senator Blackburn quizzed Mr Bessent on CBDC, to which he responded that he sees “no reason” to launch a CBDC. He argued that in other countries, there may be fewer options for parking cash.
There’s been some media coverage that President Trump wants to be involved in Federal Reserve decisions. When asked, Mr Bessent said, “I think on monetary policy decisions the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) should be independent.” While this is a supportive statement, we’d note the caveat ‘on monetary policy decisions‘.
The incoming Treasury Secretary said he believes Mr Trump’s comments on the Fed may have been misconstrued in a “highly inaccurate Wall Street Journal article”. His gist is that Mr Trump is entitled to express his opinion on where he’d like to see rates, as various Senators do from time to time.
