'A man known to everyone in the financial world': Trump's pick for Fed chief nominee

US President Donald Trump has said he will announce his nominee to head the Federal Reserve on Friday morning. According to Financial Times sources, Trump intends to appoint financier Kevin Warsh as the new head of the central bank. He already claimed the position eight years ago.

"I'm going to announce it tomorrow morning," Trump told reporters on the evening of Jan. 29 before a screening of "Melania," a documentary on the first lady. - "It will be someone who is highly respected and known to everyone in the financial world. "A lot of people believe this is someone who could have been there years ago," he noted.

Trump met earlier in the day at the White House with former Fed Board of Governors member Kevin Warsh, one of the finalists in the race to head the regulator, according to The Wall Street Journal. It is Warsh who will be nominated by Trump to replace current Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May, three sources told the Financial Times.

Warsh, 55, has long hoped to return as an executive to the U.S. Fed, where he used to work - and which he has publicly criticized over the years, the WSJ writes. As a member of the Fed's Board of Governors, he played an important - albeit non-public - role in rescuing Wall Street during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

In 2017, Trump had already considered Worsh to head the Fed, but ultimately nominated Powell. Trump was subsequently disappointed in his choice and often criticized the central bank for not cutting rates aggressively enough. Recently, Warsh has brought his position closer to Trump's views: he supported the president's tariff policy, although he had previously defended the principles of free trade for many years, and called on the Fed to accelerate the easing of monetary policy, WSJ notes.

Trump's nominee for the post of Fed chairman must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The process is complicated by a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, initiated in relation to overspending on the renovation of the central bank's headquarters. The emergence of the case has heightened concerns about the Trump administration's attempts to pressure the regulator, which has been unaccountable to the White House for decades. Republican Senator Thom Tillis has vowed to block any Trump nominees until the investigation is dropped, the WSJ writes.

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