Two Treasury nominees agree to sell bank, crypto and gold holdings if confirmed

By Rosalind Kerrow

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s picks for two senior Treasury Department posts have agreed to sell dozens of financial-sector holdings, including shares of the largest U.S. banks, crypto-related companies and gold, silver and bitcoin funds, according to ethics agreements posted by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

Ethics agreements are standard for Senate-confirmed nominees. Under the federal conflict-of-interest law, 18 U.S.C. 208, an official may not work on matters that would affect his or her own finances, and the agreements spell out what a nominee will sell, give up or step away from in order to avoid that. Both nominees committed to complete the sales within 90 days of confirmation.

Trump nominated Robert Stebbins, a former Securities and Exchange Commission general counsel, to be Treasury’s general counsel, and Francis Browne to be under secretary for domestic finance on Sept. 14, Politico reported. Politico described Browne as a longtime associate of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Browne would replace Jonathan McKernan, according to his nomination record. Browne’s nomination was referred to the Senate Finance Committee, which handles Treasury nominations.

77 holdings to sell

Stebbins’s agreement, dated Sept. 20, lists 77 holdings he will sell. They include the biggest U.S. banks, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, along with Charles Schwab, BNY Mellon, State Street, Capital One, PNC, U.S. Bancorp and Truist.

The list also includes payment companies Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Fiserv and Global Payments; exchange operators CME Group, Intercontinental Exchange and Nasdaq; private investment firms Blackstone, Apollo and KKR; insurers including AIG, Allstate, Progressive, Travelers and Prudential; and health insurers UnitedHealth Group, Cigna and Centene. Three of the companies are tied to cryptocurrency: Coinbase, Robinhood Markets and Strategy, which holds bitcoin on its balance sheet.

Foreign banks and insurers make up a large share of the list, including HSBC, Barclays, UBS, Santander, BNP Paribas, Lloyds, Standard Chartered, Mizuho, Sumitomo Mitsui, Allianz, AXA and Zurich Insurance.

Stebbins also said he still has a capital account with his former law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, which will pay him the balance no later than March 2028, and that he will not work on matters affecting the firm’s ability to pay it. His spouse is a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and he agreed to stay out of matters affecting that firm’s finances and matters in which a client of his spouse is a party, unless authorized. He will resign from Baltusrol Golf Club, the West Palm Golf Community Trust and the Overhills Community Foundation, and will stay on, unpaid, as trustee of two family trusts.

OGE’s site also lists an August ethics agreement from Stebbins tied to the post of deputy chief executive officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, where Politico reported he serves as vice president and general counsel.

Gold, silver and bitcoin

Browne’s agreement, dated Sept. 24 and posted by OGE on Oct. 10, lists five funds he will sell: the SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust, SPDR Gold Shares, the iShares Gold Trust, the iShares Silver Trust and the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF. He also agreed not to buy any of them back without consulting Treasury’s ethics official and OGE.

His spouse works at New York University for a fixed salary, according to the agreement, and Browne agreed not to work on matters in which the university is a party unless authorized.

The under secretary for domestic finance oversees Treasury’s work on financial markets, financial institutions and federal debt management. The general counsel is the department’s chief legal officer.

What is not yet public

The agreements do not give the value of the holdings. Those figures appear in each nominee’s financial disclosure report, which OGE releases only through a request form on its website, and The Inquisitor has not reviewed them. Neither agreement says how the holdings were acquired.

Each nominee must submit a certification of compliance within 90 days of confirmation, which OGE says it will post. The Inquisitor reported earlier this week on a similar agreement filed by another nominee.

The Inquisitor is requesting comment from the Treasury Department and is seeking views from the Office of Government Ethics, the Project On Government Oversight, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Public Citizen and the R Street Institute. Responses will be added when received.