In Statement Ahead of Committee Vote, Warren Blasts Hill for Blocking Independent Report on FDIC Workplace Culture
“Our job is oversight, and regardless of party, a candidate who is openly refusing to share information with members of the Senate Banking Committee should not be confirmed.”
“I remain concerned with these nominees’ willingness to follow the law, focus on the necessary work of combatting rising costs for families, and serve as a meaningful check on the President's reckless economic policies.”
Watch Opening Statement Here (YouTube)
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, gave opening remarks before an executive session vote on four Trump Administration nominees: Joseph Gormley, to be President of the Government National Mortgage Association, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); Francis Cassidy, to be Assistant Secretary, HUD; Paul Hollis, to be Director of the Mint, Department of the Treasury; and Travis Hill, to be Chairperson of the Board of Directors, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Below is Ranking Member Warren’s opening statement:
Senator Warren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So the panel before us today, if confirmed, will run critical components of our housing finance, commerce, and banking systems. I remain concerned with these nominees’ willingness to follow the law, to focus on the necessary work of combatting rising costs for families, and to serve as a meaningful check on the President's reckless economic policies.
I want to focus though on Mr. Hill, President Trump’s nominee to be chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. After reports of a longstanding toxic workplace culture at the FDIC came to light in 2023, Mr. Hill, who was then serving as Vice Chair of the FDIC, was eager to publicly prioritize the issue. I was clear at the time that the FDIC leadership had a responsibility to fix this.
But sadly, once Donald Trump became President and Mr. Hill became the acting chair, his interest in fixing these long-running problems at the FDIC seems to have faded.
I have repeatedly requested copies of the monthly assessments conducted by the FDIC’s Independent Transformation Monitor, a third party who was hired to track the agency’s progress on its cultural improvement efforts. Not only has Mr. Hill failed to provide these documents to Congress, he has also explicitly blocked the Independent Monitor from sharing those reports with us.
Our job is oversight, and regardless of party, a candidate who is openly refusing to share information with members of the Senate Banking Committee should not be confirmed.
It turns out we were able to get a hold of some of these reports anyway, and it becomes clear why he wanted to hide them: The reports are abysmal. The Independent Monitor found that:
Parts of FDIC’s Action Plan to resolve its cultural problems have been nullified by President Trump’s policies.
It found that “(t)he manner in which the FDIC communicates progress …to FDIC staff…causes confusion and is, at times, inaccurate.”
And two of the critical new offices that the FDIC set up to address its toxic workplace, the Office of Professional Conduct and the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity – offices that Mr. Hill himself touted in front of this very Committee as critical to the FDIC’s cultural improvement efforts – are understaffed.
We now also have data that validates the Independent Monitor’s concern that these offices are understaffed. Mr. Hill slashed the staffing levels of the Office of Professional Conduct, which investigates and takes disciplinary action against harassment complaints, by 30%. He has also cut staffing levels at the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, which investigates discrimination complaints.
At the same time Mr. Hill obstructs progress on its workplace cultural issues, he is actively setting the stage for the next financial crisis: cutting bank examiners, tying their hands, and rolling back safeguards on megabanks. These actions put taxpayers, the financial system, and the whole economy at risk.
Look, I will say it again: We may not all share the same views on what people should be doing, but at a minimum, we ought to have access to the information and the reports that these agencies are generating. And I feel very frustrated that we’re talking about advancing a candidate who has refused for months now to give, at least the Ranking Member of this committee, access to those reports.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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