Trump’s Fed pick grilled over his ability to distance himself from the president

Washington —

Stephen Miran, the White House economist President Donald Trump nominated to the Federal Reserve’s top ranks, just got an earful about the importance of the central bank’s independence — just as the Trump administration actively defends removing Fed Governor Lisa Cook from her post.

The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing Thursday to consider Miran’s nomination to fill a vacant seat on the Fed’s Board of Governors. It was a crucial step in Trump’s efforts to reshape the Fed, potentially eroding its long-accepted independence from politics, which in part has helped the US economy grow to and remain the world’s largest over the past century.

Republican and Democratic senators were unequivocal that the Fed’s decisions on interest rates should remain free of political con