WASHINGTON – Congressional Democrats have accused the Trump administration of delaying introduction of 19th-century abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called it an “insult to the hopes of millions.” The Treasury Department’s inspector general, under pressure from Democratic lawmakers, said it will investigate the timing of the new currency.

But the rollout of the new currency has a more complicated backstory.

Three current or former high-ranking government officials who served in the Obama administration and were involved in the design and release of currency said the Trump administration hasn’t delayed the release of the new $20.

Instead, they said, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin – while expressing indifference about Tubman’s placement on the currency – has followed a timeline set under the Obama administration for introduction of the new $20 bill.

In 2016, then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said a “final concept design” of the Tubman $20 would be released in 2020. He asked the government to accelerate the process of the redesign, saying the new look would be released by 2020, the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote.

But inside the agency, some government officials doubted that deadline could be met. A 2013 report from the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence committee, an interagency group that oversees the redesign of U.S. currency, said the $20 would not enter circulation until 2030, similar to the timeline announced by the Trump administration, according to Larry Felix, director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing from 2006 to 2015.

Felix and other senior officials believed it wouldn’t be possible to release a “concept” design of Tubman on the $20 in 2020, given that these designs are never released several years – much less an entire decade – before they enter circulation.

The treasury can release “concept” designs before the currency enters circulation in the economy, but it has never done so more than a year in advance, according to a spokesperson for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The spokesperson said the precaution is aimed at depriving hackers and other counterfeiters from having additional time to prepare for new denominations.

Felix said he told treasury officials before leaving in 2015 that their plans to introduce a new $20 design in 2020 were not feasible, given how much security work still had to be done.

“Those announcements were not grounded in reality. The U.S. had not at the time acquired the security features to redesign and protect the notes,” Felix said of Lew’s announcement that a design of the $20 would be released in 2020.

Another former government official appointed by Obama, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak about internal government deliberations, also said the new $20 had always been scheduled for release toward the end of next decade. A current high-ranking government official appointed by Obama confirmed this account.

Still, Mnuchin hasn’t shown the enthusiasm for putting Tubman on the $20 that his predecessor did – and Trump has previously dismissed the effort. Mnuchin has told lawmakers he has not made a decision on whether he supports Tubman being on the $20, unlike Lew, who publicly supported the effort.

But Mnuchin has also said he is not focused on the decision because it is unlikely to be his to make under “even the most optimistic scenarios,” given that the government’s timeline does not call for production to begin on the new $20 until after the end of a potential second Trump term.

According to the treasury, production on the new $20 will begin in 2028, with its release coming in 2030.

The history of the redesign has been convoluted, feeding the political fracas.

Initially, Lew eyed replacing Alexander Hamilton on the $10 with women’s voting rights pioneer Susan B. Anthony, as the $10 was scheduled for redesign before the $20. But the Obama administration faced public pressure not to replace Hamilton on the $10, due in part to the popularity the Founding Father enjoyed from the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton.”

In 2016, Lew said Hamilton would remain on the $10, and that a vignette of women, including Susan B. Anthony, would appear on the back of that currency.

As he announced Hamilton would stay on the $10, Lew also said Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the new $20. It was clear to currency officials working at the time that the bill would not enter circulation until late in the following decade, according to two former senior government officials in the Obama administration.

Through a spokeswoman, Lew declined to comment on the record or answer questions sent in an email. Spokespeople for congressional Democrats also did not respond to the remarks by Felix and the other former Obama officials.