Former US Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers has withdrawn his name from the list of potential candidates to replace Ben Bernanke as the head of the US Federal Reserve, according to various US media outlets Sunday.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Summers, 58, sent a letter to President Barack Obama in which he said, “I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation’s ongoing economic recovery.”
In accepting Summers’ decision, Obama called him “a critical member of my team as we faced down the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it was in no small part because of his expertise, wisdom, and leadership that we wrestled the economy back to growth and made the kind of progress we are seeing today,” the newspaper reported.
Summers, once the President of Harvard University, and Fed Vice-Chairwoman Janet Yellen have been considered the two leading candidates to succeed Bernanke, whose tenure as Fed chairman expires in January.