Fed Chair Warsh makes first hires at central bank, including ‘Project 2025’ author

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has hired two conservative economic policy researchers to work with him at the central bank, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

The two researchers are Paul Winfree, the author of the chapter on the Federal Reserve in the conservative policy blueprint “Project 2025,” and Daniel Heil, a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution think tank, where Warsh held a position before joining the Fed.

The two are “working as temporary contractors to support Warsh in his policy analysis and planning on special projects in the areas in which they have worked with him over time,” the person said. Warsh hasn’t yet made other permanent hires, this person said.

Warsh’s personnel decisions will be closely scrutinized. His broad network of advisers includes many prominent figures, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, investor Stanley Druckenmiller, and Chevron CEO Mike Wirth, all of whom appeared at his swearing-in last month at the White House.

But Warsh appears to have relatively few close advisers who have worked at the Fed or other major central banks. Warsh has positioned himself as an insider-turned-critic after serving at the Fed as governor during the 2007-2008 financial crisis under Chair Ben Bernanke.

Warsh in seeking the job pledged “regime change” at the Fed, telling an interviewer in 2025 that doing so would require “breaking some heads” at the central bank.

More recently Warsh has tempered his language about the Fed’s staff. At his swearing-in, Warsh said his “goal now is to create an environment in which the best people can do their life’s best work.”

Winfree worked on the Domestic Policy Council in the first Trump administration and more recently founded the Economic Policy Innovation Center, a pro-Trump think tank.

His chapter in “Project 2025” canvassed a range of conservative ideas to reform the Fed, some of which go beyond what Warsh has discussed. Among the ideas Winfree considered were to end the Fed’s so-called dual mandate, its directive from Congress to set interest rates with respect to maximizing employment and stabilizing prices. The Fed should instead focus on “protecting the dollar and restraining inflation,” Winfree wrote.

Warsh at his swearing-in spoke positively about upholding both sides of the dual mandate.

The Federal Reserve declined to comment for this story. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the hires.