The decision comes three months after the commission was formed.
Joseph Dunford, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the prime candidate to be appointed chairman of the Congressional Commission, familiar with both sources of the Commission's conclusion.
The decision has not yet been finalized, and more than three months later, the commission is in the process of overseeing $ 500 billion in taxpayer dollars.
According to sources, Dunford's name was mentioned for several weeks and went through vetting procedures to see the conflict of common interest. The chair was eventually announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Politico and the Wall Street Journal previously reported that Dunford was appointed to the position.
Four members have been appointed to the Congressional Oversight Commission, which has been designed to oversee the $ 500 billion debt that the Federal Reserve uses in various corners of the economy to cover losses from coronaviruses. The Commission has so far made two public reports on the program; A month after the commission was formed, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell held their first meeting Wednesday.
Dunford, a former Marine general, retired in 2019 as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He served four years in this position. In January, he was elected to the board of the nation's largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin.
Two of the commission's current members are Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania fighter Pat Tommy and Arkansas' French Hill, and two Democrats, Donna Shalala of Florida, and former 2020 candidate and Sen. Sen. Adviser Elizabeth Warren, India's Ramamurthy. Massachusetts. The fifth member of the Commission's Chairmanship requires a joint agreement from both Pelosi and McConnell.
Due to delicate negotiations, Commission members negotiated with McConnell and Pelosi, who took a stern stance on the names of competitors, fearful premature announcements could speed up the vetting process and give candidates a role to consider for withdrawal, which is up to Section 2025 of the CARES Act.
However, commission members on both sides of the aisle urged their party leaders to move quickly.
"I'm in favor of getting a chair as soon as possible," he told ABC News in a phone interview in June.
"It makes more sense before we hear, or before we hire an executive director and start hiring employees," he said.
Hill recognizes the benefit of hiring employees, which cannot be commissioned without a chair. He said the monitoring agency "will be more effective and more efficient if we have a moderately staffed staff to assist in the process."
Ramamurthy, the only non-Congress member of the commission, said on Twitter last week that the 83-day delay in naming the chair - and thus preventing the appointment of commission staff - creates "serious obstacles to strong oversight."
In terms of interaction with Commission members, the chair is the glue of the Commission and allows it to become a fully functioning oversight body. Without the chair, the Commission has not hired employees and has not yet conducted any hearings or called any government officials for evidence, although they have collectively assigned 50 to the Treasury Department in their first report. There are more questions.
Damon Silvers, who served on the panel for Warren, said Warren, who was the chairman of the panel that oversaw the stimulus package during the 2008 recession - similar to the current commission - was considered integral to its effectiveness. 2008. The Chairperson "needs to seek and receive cooperation from the Treasury" and the Federal Reserve, Silvers said.
"Clearly, as noted, the lack of a chair for the current oversight commission is excellent and requires a large number of employees. Regular reports and hearings and willingness to create expectations around the demand for data and witnesses," Silver said at a congressional hearing in late June.
According to Ramamurthy, who counted the 2008 panel as a full-scale investigation, Panel Silver and Warren had 46 employees.
Ramamurthy said we cannot do it without a chair.
"There are things we can do without a chair and we are doing - we can hear a hearing like every 30 days, and my hope is that we will have a will in the near future - but without staff, it can be tough and we need a chair to get the staff," he said.
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