Elizabeth Warren, the firebrand critic of the financial industry in the US Senate, may be regretting that time she showed president Barack Obama how to get around obstructive senators.

 

Obama wanted to appoint Antonio Weiss, a Lazard investment banker, to be his top Treasury official managing domestic financial markets. Left-wing Democrats led by Warren criticized the nominee as too inexperienced and too close to the financial industry; he worked at a major bank and played a tangential role advising Burger King on a merger that would relocate it to Canada. Yesterday (Jan. 12), Weiss withdrew his name.

 

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That’ll be awkward when the actual under-secretary for domestic finance is eventually confirmed. “Avoiding the public Senate confirmation process but nevertheless installing Mr. Weiss in a very senior position at the Treasury Department is unfortunate for the American people,” Dennis Kelleher, head of the financial reform organization Better Markets, said. “The country would have benefited from an open, public debate about the Wall Street-centric view that what is good for Wall Street is really good for America.”

 

Read the full Quartz article by Tim Fernholz here.