By Brett Forrest and Paul Kiernan 

WASHINGTON -- Trump administration officials indicated Sunday they still back Herman Cain for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, despite his warning over the weekend that he expects renewed scrutiny of sexual-harassment allegations against him.

White House economic adviser Lawrence Kudlow said the administration is vetting Mr. Cain, a process of background checks conducted before sending formal nomination documents to the Senate for confirmation.

"We've seen a lot of charges here. They don't necessarily pan out," Mr. Kudlow said of Mr. Cain on CNN, suggesting the sexual-harassment allegations wouldn't necessarily disqualify the former restaurant executive and GOP presidential candidate for a Fed seat.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said he thought Mr. Cain "will be a great member of the Fed."

Mr. Cain, in a video posted Friday to Facebook, referred to the accusations that caused him to drop his presidential campaign in late 2011, saying he will "be able to explain it this time where they wouldn't let me explain it the last time. They were too busy believing the accusers."

He said, "You better believe that the people who hate me, who do not like conservatism and Republicans are already digging up all the negative stuff that's in storage from eight years ago. So be it. Let them dig up eight-year-old stuff."

A representative for Mr. Cain said Sunday that he is "not accepting TV or print interview invitations during the vetting process."

He said in an October 2011 interview on Fox News that he was accused of sexual harassment while he was head of the National Restaurant Association during the 1990s. He called the allegations "totally baseless and totally false."

The accusations resulted in settlements paid by the trade group.

One accuser, Sharon Bialek, gave a news conference in 2011 and described in detail how she met Mr. Cain for dinner in 1997 to pursue a career at the restaurant trade group. In the car afterward, she said, he "suddenly reached over, and he put his hand on my leg, under my skirt, and reached for my genitals. He also grabbed my head and brought it towards his crotch." She added that, upon her rejecting his advances and expressing her dismay, Mr. Cain said, "You want a job, right?"

Mr. Trump supported Mr. Cain at the time. In an interview on Fox News in November 2011, Mr. Trump called the situation "a very ugly witch hunt" and portrayed Mr. Cain as the victim.

"I think it's very unfair," Mr. Trump said. "You say, 'Oh, hello, darling, how are you?' And you get sued...It's ridiculous. And I think it's very unfair to him."

Mr. Trump said Thursday he had told his staff he intended to nominate Mr. Cain for the seven-seat Fed board, which has two vacancies. Mr. Trump also has said he intends to nominate Stephen Moore, a former adviser and television commentator, to a Fed spot.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Cain, "I have recommended him highly for the Fed. I've told my folks, 'That's the man.' "

Despite the president's announcement, a person familiar with internal deliberations on Friday cautioned that Mr. Cain wouldn't be nominated until the vetting process was complete.

Senate Republicans who have commented on the prospect of Mr. Cain's nomination are generally noncommittal. "It'd be interesting," Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said of Mr. Cain's selection. "Probably in all ways," he said when asked to elaborate.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said, "They all have to go through the process and see whether or not they're a good fit, both in terms of qualifications and the experience and everything else."

Mr. Thune also said, "you want somebody on the Fed to be somebody who's very knowledgeable on economic issues, and generally speaking they're economists." But he added there is no reason "there couldn't be other people who couldn't serve in that role as well."

Democrats said they wanted to hear more about Mr. Cain's qualifications if he indeed is nominated.

"I don't know much beyond his business background, what kind of deep financial-sector knowledge or monetary policy or banking knowledge he has," said Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), a member of the Senate Banking Committee. "I'm also anxious to see whether this is again a serious suggestion or a tweet du jour."

Wall Street analysts on Thursday reacted to Mr. Trump's picks of Messrs. Cain and Moore for the Fed by pointing out that the picks are more partisan than is typical for the Fed, raising worries that the historically nonpolitical central bank could become more politicized.

"The experience of each candidate does not seem to be the main reason the Trump administration is considering their nominations," economists at Barclays said Friday.

On Sunday, Mr. Kudlow pushed back against such criticism, saying on CNN, "President Trump has every right to put people on the Federal Reserve Board with a different point of view. He wants people on the Fed who share his philosophy. This is not a political issue."

A successful businessman in the 1980s and 1990s who served as chief executive of Godfather's Pizza, Mr. Cain also sat on the board of the Kansas City Fed from 1992 to 1996. He had earlier served as a director of the Kansas City Fed's Omaha, Neb., branch.

While members of the powerful Fed board in Washington vote on monetary and regulatory policy, members of the 12 regional Fed bank boards play no such role.

The regional boards provide local business and civic leaders and Fed economists a forum to exchange insights about the economy. The boards also select their Fed bank president, who does participate in setting monetary policy.

Mr. Cain was critical of the Fed during and after his campaign for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. He said the central bank's rate policy "manipulates the dollar" in a 2012 column in The Wall Street Journal.

Since running for president, Mr. Cain, 73 years old, has dedicated himself to public speaking and offering up political commentary, in which he often blasts the media and lauds Mr. Trump.

In his video Friday, Mr. Cain dwelled on the arduous nature of the White House vetting process.

"They have to collect an inordinate amount of information on you, your background, your family, your friends, your animals, your pets, for the last 50 years," Mr. Cain said.

--Nick Timiraos and David Michaels contributed to this article.

Write to Brett Forrest at brett.forrest@wsj.com and Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 07, 2019 13:23 ET (17:23 GMT)