Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday called for an investigation into the Trump administration’s decision to delay an updated $20 bill featuring Harriet Tubman.
“I ask that you conduct an investigation into decisions made at the Treasury since January of 2018 regarding the delay of the redesign of the $20 note,” Schumer wrote in a letter to Treasury Department Inspector General Eric Thorson.
“I also ask that you review the involvement of other participants in the interagency process related to the redesign – including the Secret Service, Federal Reserve, and the White House – to ensure that political considerations have not been allowed to infect the process for designing American currency.”
{mosads}Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced last month that a redesign featuring Tubman, an abolitionist hero, will be delayed until 2028.
Obama-era Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced in 2016 that such a re-design would be released in 2020.
Earlier this month, a preliminary redesign created in late 2016 was leaked.
Mnuchin has said preventing counterfeiting is the reason for the delay.
“The primary reason we’ve looked at redesigning the currency is for counterfeiting issues,” Mnuchin said in May. “Based upon this, the $20 bill will now not come out until 2028. The $10 and the $50 will come out with new features beforehand.”
Many have criticized the decision as a move to appease President Trump, who has praised Jackson and denounced removing his image from the bill as “pure political correctness.”