Obama was one of the leakers of Summers at Fed speculation, columnist says

President Barack Obama was one of the officials who leaked that he was on the verge of naming Larry Summers to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve, according to a column Monday by progressive columnist Robert Kuttner.

According to Kuttner, in a follow-up email, a reliable source told him the president mentioned Summers on background to a small group of the press.

The carefully orchestrated campaign went awry because of a massive backlash from Senate Democrats, Kuttner said.

At the daily press briefing Monday, White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest declined to comment on Obama’s deliberations in picking a Fed chair.

Kuttner, who has long decried the influence of Robert Rubin on the Democratic Party, sees the former Treasury secretary as the puppet-master at the center of the race for Fed chairman.

In a blog on the Huffington Post, Kuttner said Rubin and his allies would never accept Yelllen as Fed chief because she is too independent and not friendly enough to Wall Street.

So with Summers’ candidacy damaged, Rubin will look for another viable candidate.

“If Rubin, Summers and their allies run true to form, they will be frantically looking for a plausible woman candidate who is closer to Wall Street than Yellen,” Kuttner said.

“It’s increasingly clear that the game here is to block Yellen,” Kuttner said.

— Greg Robb