While some Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee pressed Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, over potential conflicts of interest and political influence from the White House, the nominee defended his record and garnered widespread support from committee Republicans at a March 27 confirmation hearing.
“The breadth and depth of my combined experiences over the decades will inform my approach if I am fortunate to be confirmed by the Senate,” Atkins said in his opening statement. “It takes industry experience and focused application to ensure that customers and investors of financial-services firms benefit from efficient, effective and well-designed regulation. Our goal at the SEC should be to facilitate those efforts, analyze their effectiveness, and use our enforcement power to cure and rectify wayward actions.”
Atkins is CEO of Patomak Global Partners and a former SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008. If confirmed, Atkins said in a disclosure made public by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics on March 25 that he would resign from Patomak and sell his stake in the financial sector consultancy firm that advises institutional investors, asset managers, broker-dealers, banks, crypto firms and financial exchanges.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the committee’s ranking member, said Atkins’ consultancy work poses conflicts of interest.
“If you’re confirmed, you’ll be in a prime spot to deliver for all those clients who’ve been paying you millions of dollars for years,” Warren said.
She then asked Atkins if he will disclose who eventually buys Patomak and for how much. Atkins said he will follow the rules set forth by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Warren took the response as a nonanswer. “Some people might call that a pre-bribe,” she said.
When asked by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., how he would respond to requests to access the SEC from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Atkins said he was receptive to the prospect.
“If there are people who can help with creating efficiencies in the agency or otherwise, I would definitely work with them.” Atkins said. “And we’ll be looking at things going on at the commission right now to make sure that taxpayer funds are being used properly and that the work of the commission is being done effectively and efficiently.”
Later, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., in reference to the SEC closing some regional offices and issuing buyout and retirement offers to employees, asked Atkins if he would “commit to resisting any effort by DOGE to ignore” congressionally appropriated funding directives.
In response, Atkins said, “I will see what the situation is there and take suggestions from wherever they may come from, but it will ultimately be my decision.”
On the Republican side, Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., asked Atkins if environmental, social and governance investing makes the U.S. economy stronger.
“I want to get politics out of the financial markets and out of how the SEC interacts with the financial markets, and unfortunately there were some out there who were using other people’s money to try to influence corporations through the distortions of the corporate governance process and that sort of thing,” Atkins responded. “That will end, and we will have protections in place so that money managers and others will be focused on actual investment strategy and not on politics.”
Atkins testified March 27 alongside Jonathan Gould, nominee for comptroller of the currency; Luke Pettit, nominee to be an assistant secretary of the Treasury designate; and Marcus Molinaro, nominee for federal transit administrator at the Department of Transportation.
The committee will vote on Atkins’ nomination before it’s sent to the full Senate for consideration, and it is widely believed that he will be confirmed. A committee vote has yet to be scheduled.
