Heather Long and Damian Paletta at WP:
Stephen Moore, President Trump’s new pick to join the Federal Reserve, took a highly unusual step this week for a nominee to serve on a central bank, which takes pains to distance itself from politics.
He went on conservative radio to sell his message, saying he would advocate lower interest rates, a position President Trump has demanded but that most Fed officials, including Chair Jerome H. Powell, oppose.
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Moore could also face scrutiny over $75,000 in unpaid taxes and a $350,000 penalty the Club for Growth paid to settle Federal Election Commission violations when he was president of the political advocacy organization.
A number of prominent economists, including Greg Mankiw, a former top economist for President George W. Bush, oppose Moore’s nomination and urge the Senate to vote no.
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... Moore was ousted from the Club for Growth in 2004. The FEC investigated the Club for Growth’s activities while he was at the helm of the organization and said it failed to register as a political committee and submit its expenditures properly “despite spending millions of dollars on federal campaign activity during the 2000, 2002, and 2004 election cycle.” The Club for Growth ultimately paid a $350,000 penalty to settle with the FEC.
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In 2013, Moore told Politico that if he were president, he would allow Texas and other Southern states to secede from the Union.
In 2012, he said at a conservative fundraiser, “Greta [Van Susteren] is absolutely perfect for Fox News: She’s fair, balanced and blonde . . . one of the best things about working at Fox News is I have met a lot of beautiful women. ”
In a commentary for the National Review, he called soccer a “Marxist” sport that “teaches our kids all the wrong lessons” in life.
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In September, he wrote in an op-ed that Trump “deserves the 2018 Nobel Prize in economics.”
