Saule Omarova, a professor at Cornell Law School who was considered for a key banking regulators job, is withdrawing from consideration.
In a letter to the White House on Tuesday, Ms. Omarova said she was no longer able to apply for the position of comptroller. Mr. Biden accepted her request and called her a strong advocate for consumers and aaunch defender of the financial system.
He said thatSaule would have given valuable insight and perspective to the important work on behalf of the American people. Saule was subjected to inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale.
Republicans and bank lobbyists accused Ms. Omarova of being a threat to the American economy.
The bank lobbyists began to oppose her immediately after her nomination was announced. They said that she wanted to replace the banking industry's functions with services provided by the Federal Reserve.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has a staff of nearly 3,500 employees and regulates the country's largest banks. She would not have had the authority to make changes to the banking system because she would have had to coordinate with bank regulators at the Federal Reserve.
Some lobbyists, including the incoming chairman of a group representing community bankers and the chief executive of another group that focuses on big banks, shared a Wall Street Journal editorial suggesting that she could not be trusted.
Republicans in Congress claimed that she should not be allowed to be in Congress because of her academic work and Soviet origins. Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, demanded to know if Ms. Omarova had ever resigned from a communist youth group that Soviet children were forced to join.
Had all 50 Senate Democrats been in favor of Ms. Omarova, the Republican opposition would not have mattered. Moderate Democrats did not support her nomination. Mark Warner of Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana both said they had serious concerns about her candidacy.
The Democrat who leads the Senate Banking Committee, from Ohio, said in a statement that he was disappointed.
He said that Dr. Omarova is one of the most qualified nominees ever for this job because of her experience as a policymaker.
Mr. Brown said that powerful interests had distorted Ms. Omarova's views.
He said that they had attacked her family, heritage, and her commitment to American ideals in a campaign reminiscent of red scare McCarthyism.
