WASHINGTON — Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Martin Gruenberg will not attend the scheduled House hearing on Wednesday addressing workplace misconduct allegations at the banking agency, which an FDIC spokesperson attributed to a scheduling conflict.
When reached for comment, an FDIC official said the agency has been in close communication with the committee since they gave notice of the hearing to identify another date when the Gruenberg would have been available to testify. Gruenberg
Despite Republican calls for his resignation at last month's hearing, the veteran bank regulator managed to retain support from congressional Democrats, though Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio,
House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.,
Despite Gruenberg's absence, two FDIC board members, Hsu and Jonathan McKernan — who co-chaired a special board committee tasked with overseeing the investigation into the agency's culture — and representatives from Cleary Gottlieb will provide testimony.
Industry experts have offered varying predictions for how long Gruenberg will remain in office. If the FDIC chair were to be vacated without a successor confirmed, Republican Vice Chairman Travis Hill would take over, leaving the FDIC with a 2-2 deadlock partisan makeup and likely
Isaac Boltansky, an analyst with BTIG, interpreted Gruenberg's conditioning of his resignation on the confirmation of a Democratic successor — and thus retaining a Democratic majority on the FDIC board — as a way to respond to resignation calls without sacrificing Biden bank regulations.
"The likeliest scenario in our view is that the process to name and confirm a new nominee is strategically slow-walked to ensure that Gruenberg is in the seat and able to cast a vote advancing Democratic bank policies," he wrote in a research note. "It is difficult to envision either the White House moving quickly to submit a nominee or the Senate acting with haste on that nomination."
