FEDERAL RESERVE/NOMINATIONS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “On a steamy afternoon in late May, Judy Shelton was camped out in the lobby of the Trump Hotel in Washington, holding court with reporters from her perch on a high-backed couch. She had chosen the location, a symbolic backdrop for a big moment in her career. Her name had surfaced as being under consideration for one of two open seats on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board of Governors. For a proponent of the gold standard who has spent a career criticizing the Fed, a nomination offered a chance to shape the institution from within. Ms. Shelton, 65, has spent years positioning herself, penning opinion pieces and tweets praising President Trump’s policies, from tariffs to tax cuts. She was an adviser to his campaign and served on his transition team. But before nabbing the Fed job, Ms. Shelton made a final transformation, publicized partly from the air-conditioned calm of the hotel atrium. Long a critic of low interest rates, Ms. Shelton now said they should drop, potentially to zero — a pivot that made headlines and put her in line with Mr. Trump, a cheap-money devotee.”
–Jeanna Smialek, “Trump’s Decision to Tap Shelton Creates Political Risk for the Fed,” The New York Times online, July 3, 2019