Treasury’s Scott Bessent hires Judy Shelton, Trump’s controversial former Fed pick, as adviser

Judy Shelton, whose controversial economic ideas led the Senate to block her nomination to the Federal Reserve, has been appointed a counselor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The Treasury said Shelton will advise Bessent on currency policy, “with a particular focus on evaluating financial conditions in China.”

Shelton is not known as a China expert. She authored “Money Meltdown”, about the need for a unified international monetary regime, in 1988, followed by “The Coming Soviet Crash” the next year. Prior to joining Treasury, Shelton served as a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, a free-market think tank, and, before that, at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Utah.

“Throughout her career, she has specialized in analyzing the internal monetary and financial conditions of nations and their impact on exchange rates,’ The Treasury said in its announcement, which will be released later Friday.

A bipartisan group of Senators, including all Democrats and a handful of Republicans, rejected President Donald Trump’s 2019 nomination of Shelton as a Fed governor over her views on Fed independence, her support for the gold standard and her questioning whether the U.S. needed a central bank.

Her appointment comes at what looks to be a time of turmoil at Treasury regarding high-level personnel. A recent Wall Street Journal story cataloged seven Senate-confirmed officials who have left the department through the end of August. Only one position has been filled.

Bessent recently named David Zervos, former chief market strategist at Jeffries, as a counselor—the same job title as Shelton. Neither Shelton nor Zervos require Senate approval.