Stephen Moore, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, stands for a photograph following a Bloomberg Television interview in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, March 22, 2019.

Now, Moore's past humorous writings, which make pointed jokes about his then-jobless spouse, and about Hillary Clinton, Democrats and AIDS, have come to light, raising the prospect of even rockier waters for Moore in his bid to join the central bank.

The proposal by President Donald Trump to put conservative economic pundit Stephen Moore on the Federal Reserve board hit a stumbling block weeks ago with the disclosure of his contentious divorce and a federal tax lien, which came on the heels of criticism of his nomination by a range of economists.

In a 2003 National Review Online column, Moore joked that he had deployed an "ingenious child rearing technique" of taping "gruesome pictures" of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's dead, mangled sons on the family refrigerator with the written message: "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO KIDS THAT GROW UP TO BE DEMOCRATS!"

In 2004, Moore wrote another National Review Online column, a "Happy Christmas" letter that likewise was clearly intended to be humorous. In the piece, Moore griped about his young sons' poor athletic performance and his then-3-year-old boy being diagnosed with "low-muscle tone" by a pediatrician.

"He might as well have told us that [the boy] has AIDS," Moore wrote.

The columns, which CNBC has reviewed, seem less funny now than they may have been seen originally in light of the recent exposure of Moore's divorce records. Those documents show that his ex-wife Allison had accused him of adultery, of subjecting her to "emotional and psychological abuse," and of shorting her on more than $300,000 he had agreed to pay her in a divorce settlement, alimony and child support until a judge held him in contempt of court. The IRS has a $75,000 tax lien on Moore for unpaid income taxes from his 2014 tax return. Moore is contesting that amount.

On Tuesday, Trump's top economics advisor, Larry Kudlow, a key backer of Moore's nomination, told reporters that the White House is speaking with "a number of" other potential "candidates" for the Fed's two open board seats besides Moore and former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, whose selection by the president likewise has faced criticism.

Kudlow also said that Moore and Cain are both still in the vetting process, and that "we support" both men's candidacies for the central bank posts.

A spokeswoman for Moore told CNBC that Moore had no comment either on his columns or on Kudlow's remarks.

In her 2010 divorce complaint, Allison Moore said she was the "primary caretaker and role model for the parties' children."

"She quit her job to devote her time to raising their children," the complaint said.

But Allison Moore's lack of a job was a subject of jabs by her husband in the joke-laden National Review Online columns — which appear to be written as parodies of annual family Christmas letters. In the essays, he routinely referred to himself in the third person.

"Allison consumes, but she still doesn't produce," Moore wrote of his then-wife in a December 2003 column in the National Review. "She now falls into the category of what economists call 'long-term unemployed.' Steve describes her as the family's 'loss leader.'"

"She manages to keep busy though, what with her anger-management class in the morning, Weight Watchers in the afternoon, and then Tuesday and Thursday evenings when she and Steve attend couple's therapy," he wrote.