Watch: Yellen Stammers After Senator Corners Her On Bailouts, Protecting CCP-Linked Deposits

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was caught flat-footed on Thursday during testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, after Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) grilled her over whether all deposits at Oklahoma community banks would now be fully insured like those at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

“Will they get the same treatment that SVB just got, or Signature Bank just got?” asked Lankford.

“I’m concerned you’re…encouraging anyone who has a large deposit at a community bank to say, ‘we’re not going to make you whole, but if you go to one of our preferred banks, we will make you whole,” Lankford said.

“That is certainty not something that we’re encouraging,” Yellen replied.

“A bank only gets that treatment” under the systemic risk exception rule, Yellen continued, explaining that it takes a ‘supermajority’ vote to do so.

“I, in consultation with the president, determine that the failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences,” she said.

Chinese investors made whole?

Lankford then noted that it has been reported that many Chinese funds and startups, including those with ties to the CCP, had invested with SVB.

“Will my banks in Oklahoma pay a special assessment to be able to make Chinese investors whole from Silicon Valley Bank?” Lankford asked, to which Yellen replied, “I suppose that could include foreign depositors.”

“I don’t believe there’s any legal basis to discriminate among uninsured,” she continued.

Watch:

Here is the snippet: pic.twitter.com/85iBeXC0Wn

— Seidler (@SeidlerCorp) March 17, 2023