Four years ago, in the lead-up to Bernanke’s re-nomination, the process was run by Geithner. Larry Summers, then the director of the NEC, was excluded because he was also interested in the position, said the official.
With the Fed’s chairmanship staggered to the president’s four-year term, the last three Fed chairmen have served a total of six presidents. Five of the last six presidents have inherited a chairman who they then re-nominated.
Bernanke and his immediate predecessors, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, were all reappointed by a president from a different party than the president who initially nominated them.
The circumstances of their eventual departures were unique and depended on their personal relationship with the president.
“It’s not a formal process,” Greenspan said in an interview. “It’s an individual decision by two people: the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the president of the United States.”