Treasury Appoints Judy Shelton as Adviser to Scott Bessent

The US Treasury Department has appointed Judy Shelton, a controversial former Federal Reserve nominee, as a counselor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, assigning her to advise on currency policy with particular attention to China's financial conditions. The appointment places Shelton in a senior advisory role despite her previous rejection by the Senate over her economic views.

According to the Treasury Department, Shelton's responsibilities will include evaluating international monetary and financial conditions and their effects on exchange rates. The department said her background in analyzing national financial systems supports her appointment, although she is not widely known as a specialist on China.

"Throughout her career, she has specialized in analyzing the internal monetary and financial conditions of nations and their impact on exchange rates," the Treasury Department said in its announcement.

Shelton previously served as a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, a free-market think tank, and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Utah and has written books on international monetary systems and economic instability.

Her 1989 book, "The Coming Soviet Crash," examined the Soviet economy, while her 1994 book, "Money Meltdown," addressed the need for a unified international monetary regime. Her published work has focused on monetary policy and the structure of international finance.

Shelton's appointment follows the Senate's rejection of President Donald Trump's 2019 nomination of her to serve as a Federal Reserve governor. A bipartisan group of senators, including all Democrats and several Republicans, opposed her confirmation because of concerns about her views on the central bank's independence, her support for the gold standard and her questioning of whether the United States needed a central bank.

The appointment also comes amid turnover among senior Treasury Department personnel. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that seven Senate-confirmed officials had left the department through the end of August, while only one of those positions had been filled.

Bessent has also appointed David Zervos, the former chief market strategist at Jefferies, as a counselor. Zervos holds the same advisory title as Shelton, and neither appointment requires Senate confirmation.