Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker bitterly attacked President Donald Trump three months before he died, tying him to a "movement to undermine Americans’ faith in our government and its policies and institutions."
Volcker, who died Sunday at age 92, said in an afterword to a paperback release of his autobiography that "nihilistic forces are dismantling policies to protect our air, water, and climate."
An excerpt of the afterward in Volcker's book, "Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government," were published Wednesday in the Financial Times and reported by CNBC.
"They seek to discredit the pillars of our democracy: voting rights and fair elections, the rule of law, the free press, the separation of powers, the belief in science, and the concept of truth itself," Volcker said.
He was chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987 and invoked a tight-fisted monetary policy to reign in the double-digit inflation of the period.
As a later adviser to former President Barack Obama, Volcker developed a banking-reform rule that would restrict risk-taking on Wall Street.
In the afterward he wrote in September, Volcker bashed President Trump's constant attacks on the Fed, Chairman Jerome Powell and its interest-rate policies.
"Not since just after the Second World War have we seen a president so openly seek to dictate policy to the Fed," Volcker wrote.
"That is a matter of great concern, given that the central bank is one of our key governmental institutions, carefully designed to be free of purely partisan attacks."
Further, confidence in the United States is "under siege," he said.
"Seventy-five years ago, Americans rose to the challenge of vanquishing tyranny overseas," Volcker said. "We joined with our allies, keenly recognizing the need to defend and sustain our hard-won democratic freedoms.
"Today’s generation faces a different, but equally existential, test," he continued. "How we respond will determine the future of our own democracy and, ultimately, of the planet itself."
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