President-elect Joe Biden's pick for Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, earned millions of dollars in recent years, giving speeches to Wall Street banks she soon could be regulating.
Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve, earned nearly $1 million alone in multiple speeches to Citigroup, according to financial disclosure documents filed last week, per CNN. She also has given speeches to major corporations and industry groups.
Among the other companies Yellen addressed since stepping down from the Fed in 2018 were Google, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Salesforce.
Although it is common for former government officials to earn big money by giving speeches, Yellen's disclosure could create some awkwardness. She will become Biden's top official for the economy and finance – if, as expected, she is confirmed as Treasury secretary.
"This disclosure dovetails with some broader Democratic concerns regarding the revolving door and the access certain financial services firms have to top policymakers," Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research at Compass Point Research & Trading, told CNN in an email.
As Treasury secretary, Yellen will chair a team of U.S. regulators that responds to risks growing in the financial system.
The Biden transition team downplayed concerns about Yellen's income from Wall Street firms.
"Take a look at her record on enforcement – this is not someone who pulls punches when it comes to bad actors or bad behavior," a Biden transition official told CNN Business.
Transcripts of Yellen's speeches to Wall Street banks, however, have not been made public. The Biden transition official did not immediately offer specific examples of Yellen warning rules might be become more strict.
"The next Treasury secretary making millions off of the biggest banks, PE firms, tech companies, etc. raises serious red flags," The Revolving Door Project, a progressive group that tracks conflicts of public officials, wrote on Twitter.
The group called on Yellen to publish "in full" all of her paid speeches to show if she was "merely opining on the markets, or offering lobbying/policy advice."
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