Right before Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and was subsequently nationalized using taxpayer dollars, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) prevented efforts by private buyers to purchase the bank.

Members of the Wall Street Journal editorial board noted that, despite federal claims that it could not find a buyer for SVB, a source has told them that both the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury were able to find buyers. Unfortunately, FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg rejected the buyers owing to the government's hostility to bank mergers.

This is seemingly supported by Kevin Hassett, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the administration of former President Donald Trump. During an interview with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, Hassett noted that people within the financial world who have intimate knowledge of the situation surrounding SVB told him that "there were buyers who were willing to step in and buy the bank, [but] the radicals at the FDIC basically weren't going to allow that to happen."

"I even heard again, someone told me this directly that was close to the situation, that the Biden administration had a whitelist of companies who were allowed to buy the failed bank and companies that weren't," he added.

FDIC's solution to SVB debacle puts taxpayer money at risk

Hassett called upon Congress to hold hearings to find out how the FDIC handled the reported offers.