Senator Thom Tillis said Sunday that he will now vote to confirm Kevin Warsh as Donald Trump’s choice to run the Federal Reserve, ending a Senate blockade that had tied Kevin to a nasty fight over chairman Jerome Powell, DOJ power, and the Fed’s independence.
The North Carolina Republican Senator wanted the Justice Department to drop its criminal probe into Powell, as Cryptopolitan previously reported.
Tillis said this is a fight over whether the DOJ was being used to scare the central bank, and added that his decision likely gives Kevin a fast road to confirmation before Powell’s chair term ends on May 15.
Tillis says he is dropping his condition because the DOJ gave him the answer he wanted before Kevin could advance
Tillis told NBC that he spent the weekend getting the assurances he wanted from DOJ officials.
“We worked a lot over the weekend to make sure that we were very clear that we have assurances from the DOJ that I needed to feel like they were not using the DOJ as a weapon to threaten the independence of the Fed. So this will allow Mr. Wash to move on with his confirmation on time.”
The senator also said he had “a number of discussions” with DOJ officials. He said they made it clear that “the current investigation is completely and fully ended.” That was the line Tillis had been waiting for before letting Kevin go ahead.
DOJ announced Friday that it was dropping the Powell probe. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said the department was clearing space for Federal Reserve Inspector General Michael Horowitz to review cost overruns tied to the building work.
That part is not new. Michael was already doing a second review after Powell asked for it last July. His first review, done in 2021, found no wrongdoing.
The whole fight grew out of Trump’s attacks on Powell and the Fed’s office project, saying the renovation showed bad management at the central bank. Cryptopolitan reported last year that Powell said the criminal probe was “intimidation” and part of Trump’s push for lower interest rates.
In March, a federal judge blocked subpoenas from Jeanine’s office and said they were backed by “essentially zero evidence.”
Powell keeps his Fed board seat option as Kevin heads toward the Senate floor
Tillis had already said earlier this month that he liked Kevin as the nominee, and called him “a perfect candidate” in an NBC News interview.
After a Senate hearing on Kevin’s nomination, Tillis told reporters, “Let’s get Warsh in there.” He also said, “Let’s get Chair Powell comfortable with actually exiting at some point, not to 2028, and do that by eliminating a bogus investigation that started this whole drama.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters on Sunday that DOJ officials would let Michael handle the review while prosecutors stepped back. “He has a lot of tools. He can talk to people, and he can look at records. We have a lot of faith in [him], we’re going to let that process play out,” Todd said.
Todd then added that: “I’m not going to pre-judge what the investigation will find and say there’s absolutely going to be charges or absolutely not going to be charges. That wouldn’t be fair to the process. We are, we are going to let the investigation unfold, let him do his work.”
Powell can still stay at the Fed as a regular governor after his chair term ends. Fed chairs usually leave both roles at the same time, but this situation is not clean, and some Fed watchers think Powell may stay if the DOJ can reopen the matter later.
His lawyers already pointed that way in court. A March 13 legal filing said, “Chair Powell’s counsel made clear that, to defend the Federal Reserve’s independence, Chair Powell could not resign while the criminal investigation is pending.”
The Senate Banking Committee is expected to send Kevin’s nomination to the full Senate on Tuesday. That same day, Powell is set to lead the Fed’s next two-day rate meeting. The Fed is expected to leave rates unchanged while it studies the economic damage from the Iran war and the jump in energy prices.
