Yellen denies charges of Fed political bias

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen defended the central bank against GOP charges of political bias during fiery testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.

It was Yellen’s second and final day of testimony before Capitol Hill, with the usually reserved chairwoman at times speaking over Republican lawmakers critical of the Fed.

{mosads}Republicans suggested the central bank is close to the Obama administration and Democrats.

Yellen called it a “complete mischaracterization” for Republicans to say that she’s only meeting with Democratic officials at the White House. And she forcefully pushed back against proposals that would increase disclosures of her meetings with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

Yellen said that she does “not discuss monetary policy or actions that we are going to take with the secretary or with the executive branch.”

“These are private one-on-one meetings and I don’t think it’s appropriate,” Yellen said to Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) who grilled the chairwoman. “If I had breakfast with you — I would not make a transcript of what we discussed over breakfast.”

The hearing comes as lawmakers are questioning the central bank’s transparency and pushing for changes.

“We are accountable to Congress,” Yellen maintained throughout the hearing.

Garrett, though, said that Yellen is “lobbying the other side of the aisle extremely hard to not agree to require the agency to be more accountable and transparent.”

“You are lobbying against having more confines around your ability to use your bailout authority. You are lobbying against being required to do more economic analysis of your rulemakings. You are lobbying against additional public scrutiny and Congressional oversight,” Garrett said.

“I am not sure who is lobbying more, you or the big banks you oversee,” he added.

Yellen also reiterated her opposition to Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) “Audit the Fed” proposal, which would give Congress more oversight in auditing the central bank. She said it would politicize the independent bank.