Stephen Moore, President Trump's likely nominee for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board, has supporters in the White House who are able to look past his earlier financial and legal troubles, a senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal Monday.
There are two vacancies on the seven-member board, and last month, President Trump said he planned on picking Moore, a conservative commentator, for one of the seats. Since then, it's been reported that Moore owes the IRS $75,000; a judge found him in contempt of court for not paying his ex-wife spousal and child support; and he was fired from The Wall Street Journal's editorial board due to his questionable choices in speaking engagements. The White House continues to stand behind him, the official said, and nothing that has come out has changed anyone's opinion.
Last week, Moore's wife, Anne Carey, explained the $75,000 debt to the IRS as a filing error on his 2014 taxes involving a deduction for both alimony and child support payments; Moore was only allowed to deduct alimony. Over the weekend, The Guardian obtained court records showing that in November 2012, Moore was found in contempt of court for not paying his ex-wife $300,000 in spousal and child support and divorce settlement payments. In 2013, a judge ordered Moore to sell his house in Virginia to pay off the debt, but his ex-wife stopped this after he paid her two-thirds of what was owed.
Moore joined the Journal's editorial board in 2005, leaving in 2014 after a dispute with editorial page director Paul Gigot, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. Writers for the editorial page are prohibited from getting paid for speaking to nonprofit organizations, and Gigot became uneasy with some of Moore's speaking engagements, feeling they were entering partisan territory. "I told him he had to make a choice between politics and journalism," Gigot told the Journal. Read more about Moore's apparent missteps at The Wall Street Journal.