by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
FEDERAL COURT, Jan 28 – The Federal Reserve Board, currently proclaiming its independence, claims it has no records at all about considering or trying to address the conflict of interest of having banks on the boards of directors of its Federal Reserve Banks.
This despite the obvious conflict and controversy of having had Silicon Valley Bank on the board of the FRBSF. Inner City Press on January 28 filed this FOIA appeal:
On behalf of Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press and in my personal capacity, this is an immediate FOIA appeal of the Board's January 28 denial of our January 12 FOIA request for Fulton Financial's branch closing answer to the AI request they put it in a public exhibit - precisely the type of information made public after FOIA request in Fifth Third - Comerica, after an identical request, and a directly challenge, to be presented to the Governors, to the Denial's statement that
"With respect to item 2 of your request, staff searched Board records but did not locate any documents responsive to this portion of your request. Therefore, we are unable to provide you with any responsive information." Item 2 was "[2] all records reflecting FRS including FRB of Philadelphia considering of possible conflicts of interesting [sic] in having Fulton’s CEO on the FRB of Philadelphia’s Board of Directors while the FRB of Philadelphia considers Fulton’s merger applications including deciding how to treat adverse comments and whether to sent [sic] copies of AI letters and allow withholding of answers to AI letters. The request, for context, includes FRS consideration of bank and bank holding company respresention [sic] on the boards of the other Reserve Banks."
The item / request obviously includes Reserve Banks beyond FRB of Philadelphia. Inner City Press understands from sources that the FRS has internally sought to address criticism of having had Silicon Valley Bank on the board of the FRBSF, and SVB's subsequent failure. To say there are no record is not credible - this appeal must be presented directly to the Governors.
On December 29, OceanFirst, which settled charges of redlining earlier this decade, announced it will apply to buy Flushing Bank in New York. OceanFirst was on the board of the FRB of Philadelphia.
Fair Finance Watch has opposed it, in comments filed January 2 with the Federal Reserve Board which recently allowed a $7 billion mega-merger to proceed with no Fed review. OceanFirst's record should preclude this. and this proposed deal.
In 2024 OceanFirst made 1399 loans to whites - and only 94 to African Americans. In Connecticut, for example, it made loans only to whites, none to African Americans.
In Pennsylvania its ratio of loans to whites to loans to African Americans was 4.5 to 1. In New York, it was 7 to 1.
This proposal is being opposed along with the OCC's moves to exclude the public, and to withhold documents under FOIA from Inner City Press and others until comment periods close.
On January 7 the Federal Reserve replied: "The Federal Reserve Bank of Phiadelphia received your correspondence on January 2, 2026, regarding a future application by OceanFirst to acquire Flushing Bank. The Federal Reserve has not yet received an application by OceanFirst to acquire Flushing Bank. Accordingly, no immediate action will be taken on the correspondence dated January 2, 2026. If a filing is received in the next three months, your comment may be considered as part of the application record for the filing."
MAY be considered? Watch this site.
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