Home Business Adewale Adeyemo testifies before Senate Finance Committee during confirmation hearing

Adewale Adeyemo Confirmation Hearing To Be Deputy Treasury Secretary Before Senate Finance Committee — Adewale Adeyemo, deputy U.S. Treasury secretary nominee for U.S. President Joe Biden, speaks during a Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. If confirmed, Adeyemo will oversee a top-to-bottom review of the agency's sanctions operations, including an evaluation of current programs, staffing and budgets. Photographer: Greg Nash/The Hill/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Adewale Adeyemo testifies before Senate Finance Committee during confirmation hearing

February 26, 2021

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Adewale Adeyemo, President Biden’s nominee for the No. 2 spot at the Treasury Department, testified at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday (Feb.23). If confirmed as expected, Adeyemo and his boss, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, will make history as the first woman to lead the agency and the first Black deputy secretary.

Adeyemo was born in Nigeria and moved to the US with his parents at a young age. He previously served as a senior international economic adviser in the Obama administration.

He is one of the few Biden nominees who seems to enjoy bipartisan support and it showed at the hearing in Tuesday. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), in a clip you can watch above, was effusive in praising Adeyemo as the hearing opened.

“Wally Adeyemo is an ideal choice to serve as deputy secretary,” Chairman Wyden said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee’s former chairman said he had some policy disagreements with Adeyemo but that given his qualifications, merited confirmation.

Former presidential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) who was the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Obama administration said Adeyemo was the new bureau’s first chief and staff “where he worked miracle after miracle” to address economic inequality.