Geithner getting reinforcements at Treasury

Timothy Geithner might finally get some help.

Political pundits have been joking that the embattled treasury secretary has been "home alone" while dealing with the financial crisis because several people in the mix for key posts in the department dropped out during the vetting process.

This evening, President Obama announced his picks for three of the four most senior jobs: Neal S. Wolin, nominated to be deputy secretary, Lael Brainard, nominated to be undersecretary for international affairs, and Stuart A. Levey, the current Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, tapped to stay in that position.

"I am grateful for the service of these dedicated and talented individuals and have the highest confidence that, under the leadership of Secretary Geithner, they will serve the American people well as we tackle the challenges ahead of us,” Obama said in a statement.

Their mini-biographies, provided by the White House, are below:

Neal S. Wolin, Nominee for Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
Wolin is a Treasury Department veteran who served as General Counsel at Treasury from 1999- 2001, and as Deputy General Counsel from 1995-1999. He served briefly in the Obama White House as Deputy Counsel to the President for Economic Policy and Deputy Assistant to the President before being asked to rejoin Treasury. Wolin formerly served as President and Chief Operating Officer for Property and Casualty Operations at The Hartford Financial Services Group. Earlier in his career, he served in the Clinton Administration as Executive Assistant to the National Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor; and as Deputy Legal Advisor to the National Security Council. He also served as Special Assistant to Central Intelligence Directors Gates, Webster, and Woolsey. Before that, he worked in private law practice at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, DC. Wolin is a graduate of Yale College (B.A., History, summa cum laude); the University of Oxford (M.Sc., Development Economics); and Yale Law School. Wolin was a Law Clerk for U.S. District Judge Eugene Nickerson, Eastern District of New York. He has served as an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; a Visiting Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution; a member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States; and as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School.

Lael Brainard, Nominee for Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs
Brainard is Vice President and Founding Director of the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution. She also holds the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair and is Director of the Brookings Initiative on Competitiveness. Brainard served as Deputy National Economic Adviser and Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economics during the Clinton Administration, addressing challenges such as the Asian financial crisis and China’s role in the global economy. She also served as the U.S. Sherpa to the G8. Previously, Brainard served as Associate Professor of Applied Economics at MIT Sloan School, where her research addressed the relationship between offshore production, trade, and jobs and structural and cyclical unemployment in the US economy. Brainard has also worked at McKinsey & Co. advising corporate clients on strategic challenges. She has also worked on microfinance in West Africa. Brainard received masters and doctoral degrees in Economics from Harvard University, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow. She graduated with highest honors from Wesleyan University. She is the recipient of a White House Fellowship and a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship.

President Obama also made the following announcement today:
Stuart A. Levey, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
Levey was confirmed by the Senate on July 21, 2004 as the first Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). (His appointment does not require reconfirmation.) As Under Secretary, he leads an office which marshals the Treasury Department's policy, enforcement, regulatory, and intelligence functions to sever the lines of financial support to international terrorists, WMD proliferators, narcotics traffickers, and other threats to our national security. In this capacity he oversees the Office of Terrorist Finance and Financial Crime (TFFC), the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the Treasury Executive Office of Asset Forfeiture (TEOAF). In furtherance of the Treasury Department’s national security mission, Levey has guided the development and implementation of financial strategies and authorities aimed at countering threats to U.S. national security and protecting the international financial system from abuse. Levey is responsible for the Department’s efforts to disrupt and dismantle the financial networks supporting terrorist organizations. He has also overseen the development and implementation of financial measures against proliferators of weapons of mass destruction. Levey has played a central role in efforts to combat North Korea’s and Iran’s illicit conduct in the international financial system. Prior to his nomination to his current post, Levey served as the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he was the Deputy Attorney General’s primary staff member with responsibility for coordinating the Justice Department’s varied counterterrorism activities, including investigations, intelligence collection and prosecutions. Prior to assuming that position, he served as an Associate Deputy Attorney General and also as the Deputy Attorney General’s Chief of Staff. Prior to joining the Justice Department in 2001, Levey spent 11 years in private practice at the Washington law firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin LLP. He had a litigation practice with a special emphasis on white collar criminal defense. He also clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1989 through 1990. Mr. Levey graduated from Harvard College, summa cum laude, in 1986 and from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, in 1989.