A donor to the Clinton Foundation and Democratic National Committee (DNC) has been appointed as the chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
Robert Steven Kaplan, a Harvard Business School professor and former executive at Goldman Sachs, has also donated more than $100,000 to Democratic candidates and campaigns, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
Kaplan has donated $147,450 to Democratic candidates and campaigns, including $45,600 to the DNC, as well as $15,450 to Republican candidates and campaigns.
Kaplan has also donated between $25,000 and $50,000 to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Kaplan was appointed to be the CEO of the Dallas Fed on Aug. 17. As part of his role, Kaplan will also serve as a member of the FOMC, the group that is scheduled to meet eight times a year to formulate monetary policy, which includes setting interest rates and open market operations such as quantitative easing (QE) policy.
Kaplan will begin the job on Sept. 8, 2015, one week before the highly anticipated September FOMC meeting, where 82 percent of economists are predicting that the Fed will raise interest rates.
Kaplan will replace Richard Fischer, a critic of the Fed and QE policy, the process of large-scale asset purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities that has greatly expanded the Fed’s balance sheet.
Kaplan’s views on monetary policy are not well known, the Washington Post reported.
Members of the Dallas Fed board of directors appointed Kaplan.
"The Bank’s search committee considered a broad pool of excellent candidates to ensure we met our goal of finding someone who has a deep understanding of the economy, financial system and monetary policy—yet who also sincerely appreciates the impact decisions made by the Federal Reserve have on people from all walks of life," said Dallas Fed board chair Renu Khator.
"I believe we found that person in Robert Steven Kaplan."