Barney Frank Defends Seat on Defunct Bank’s Board

Former congressman Barney Frank this week defended his holding a seat on the board of Signature Bank, which was recently shuttered by regulators and taken over by New York officials.

Signature Bank was shuttered following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week. In an interview with the Financial Times, Frank defended his seat on the board of Signature Bank which he took up in 2015, two years after leaving Congress.

“I worked as a member of Congress for a certain objective,” Frank, a Democrat, said. “And then having retired, not having a pension by my choice, not wanting to be a lobbyist for reasons personal, I need to make some money.”

He added, “Obviously people will say, Oh, hey mister, you told everybody else how to run a bank and the bank you were helping run failed.”

Frank said in an interview with The New York Times that regulators took control over Signature Bank in order “to encourage the others,” to stay away from cryptocurrency assets, saying, “I think we were shot to encourage the others to stay away from crypto.”