Critics raise concerns about ties to crypto industry
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday (March 12) confirmed the nomination of former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney as the U.S. representative to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, based in Paris.
The vote was 63-31. Maloney, whose U.S. House district included the Highlands, will receive the rank of ambassador. President Joe Biden nominated the Philipstown resident for the position last summer.
Maloney, a Democrat, served five terms in the House before being defeated in the November 2022 election by Mike Lawler. Both New York senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, voted for his appointment.
The OECD, founded in 1961, “works to build better policies for better lives” by creating “evidence-based international standards and finding solutions to a range of social, economic and environmental challenges” such as job creation, improving education and fighting tax evasion.
The group came out of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, which was created to administer U.S. and Canadian aid for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.
“Authoritarian regimes are trying to tell a story that their single-party systems, command economies and repressive security apparatuses deliver the best outcomes for their people,” Maloney said in a statement on Nov. 16 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “The OECD provides the objective research to expose that fiction and demonstrate the strength and benefits of a free society.”
He added: “Modern small-town America needs a strong global economy, open/reliable markets, good infrastructure, affordable food and energy prices and an educated workforce. If confirmed by the committee, the needs of American families will always be my primary concern at the OECD.”
A group called the Revolving Door Project in January raised concerns about the nomination, saying Maloney has a conflict of interest because he serves on a 10-person advisory committee for the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase and the OECD plays a role in developing global crypto regulation. Coinbase hired Maloney on the same day in May 2023 that Biden submitted the nomination.
“Unlike most cases of conflicts of interest, where a nominee had performed work in the past that could play a role in how they approach their government position, this is a case of a private firm hiring an individual after their imminent nomination was known,” said Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the project, in a statement. “This not only allowed Maloney’s Coinbase work to escape notice on his financial disclosure — which he had already submitted — but it allowed a cryptocurrency firm with a demonstrated interest in OECD policymaking to hire the presumptive future U.S ambassador.”
In a December letter to the CEO of Coinbase, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts criticized the firm for hiring Maloney, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and former Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio for its advisory board.
“This abuse of the revolving door is appalling, revealing that the crypto industry is spending millions to give itself a veneer of legitimacy while fighting tooth and nail to stonewall common-sense rules designed to restrict the use of crypto for terror financing — rules that could cut into crypto company profits,” she wrote. “It also reveals significant gaps in the nation’s ethics laws.”
According to Politico, Maloney wrote Warren in February to pledge that, if confirmed, he would “immediately resign from all private-sector advisory work and recuse himself from OECD decision-making processes on crypto and digital assets policy.”
Maloney also said he would not accept employment, board service or compensation from any crypto company or organization for four years after he left the OECD. Warren voted for his appointment.
