Treasury Inspector General To Probe Trump Adminstration’s Delay Of Harriet Tubman $20 Bill Redesign

by Pablo MenaJuly 6, 2019, 5:37 pmDaily Digest, News, News Feed >

The Treasury Department’s acting Inspector General Rich Delmar will investigate the White House’s decision to postpone a new design for $20 bills featuring Harriet Tubman, it was announced Monday.

Delmar reportedly wrote Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) a letter that an audit into the currency re-design has already begun.

“It will specifically include review of the process with respect to the $20 bill. If, in the course of our audit work, we discover indications of employee misconduct or other matters that warrant a referral to our Office of Investigations, we will do so expeditiously,” the letter read.

Executives from the Federal Reserve System, the Treasury Department and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing will reportedly be involved in the inquiry and review, which Delmar said could take approximately 10 months.

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Schumer had initially demanded an investigation into the proposed new $20 bill to determine if any “political considerations” played a role in the initiative’s delay.

Last month, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced that a $20 bill re-design featuring slavery abolitionism icon Tubman would be postponed until around 2028, well after President Donald Trump leaves office.

The United States is one of the few developed countries that does not feature female historical figures on any of its currency.

Under Barack Obama in 2016, then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had pushed for a $20 bill re-design in 2020.

In the 1850s, Tubman became a major activist who helped enslaved African-Americans gain freedom and rescue them via clandestine routes and safe houses in the Northern U.S. known as the Underground Railroad. Many slaves ended up fleeing to free countries like Canada.