Judy Shelton

Judy Shelton is an American economic advisor to President Donald Trump. She is known for her advocacy for a return to the gold standard and for her criticisms of the Federal Reserve. Trump announced on July 2, 2019, that he would nominate Shelton to the Fed, but the nomination has not yet been sent to the U.S. Senate.

Shelton attended Portland State University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Education. Shelton also holds a MBA and Ph.D in business administration from the University of Utah.

She worked at the Hoover Institution from 1985 to 1995. She was on Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign. In 2016, she was on the Ben Carson presidential campaign, but joined the Trump campaign in August 2016 after writing a supportive Wall Street Journal opinion editorial about Trump.

Prior to joining the Trump administration, she was the director of the Sound Money Project at the Atlas Network. She has donated to conservative candidates and causes.

In 2000, she advocated for open borders with Mexico.

During the Obama years, she criticized the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates. During the Trump presidency, she advocated for the Federal Reserve to adopt lower interest rates as a form of economic stimulus. (Trump frequently criticized the Federal Reserve for not lowering interest rates.) She supports the Republican Party's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and the Trump administration's deregulative agenda. Before Trump became president, she was a longtime advocate for free trade, but after he became president, she supported his administration's trade war with China.

In March 2018, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the United States director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

On July 3, 2019, President Donald Trump used his Twitter account to announce his intention to nominate Shelton and a regional Fed official, Christopher Waller, to the Federal Reserve board. His previous nominees, former presidential contender Herman Cain and economic commentator Stephen Moore, had withdrawn for lack of Senate support. During the months in which Shelton was being considered for the post by Trump, she was a guest at Trump's D.C. hotel.

Shelton is known as a critic of the Federal Reserve.

Shelton is a long-time proponent of pegging the value of the dollar to gold. In 2019, she said that she hoped for a new Bretton Woods-style conference where countries would agree to return to the gold standard, saying, "If it takes place at Mar-a-Lago that would be great." Mar-a-Lago is a club run by President Trump.

Shelton is married to Gilbert Shelton. The Sheltons had eleven French Charolais cattle, six dogs and peacocks as of 2009. Her husband is a former entrepreneurial banker in Utah, Colorado, and Hawaii who sold the businesses in the early 1980s. They have lived at Moss Neck Manor, a historic antebellum plantation house in Virginia, since 2005. The property borders Fort A.P. Hill.