A Senate committee moved late Friday to advance Kevin Warsh’s nomination to lead the Federal Reserve, scheduling a vote for Wednesday after U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said she was closing a criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell, potentially removing the main obstacle blocking Warsh’s path to confirmation.
Pirro announced Friday on social media that she had ended her probe into Powell and the Fed’s $2.5 billion headquarters renovation, although she said the inquiry could resume if the central bank’s inspector general uncovers evidence of wrongdoing. That caveat provoked some wariness on Capitol Hill, where the investigation had come to be widely seen as an abuse of power by the Justice Department, which has pursued President Donald Trump’s perceived foes with often shaky allegations of criminal conduct since last year.
The GOP-led Senate Banking Committee scheduled a vote for April 29. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), who had been blocking Warsh’s nomination until Pirro stood down her investigation, has not commented publicly on whether he would now support moving the nomination forward. Republicans hold a 13-11 majority on the committee, meaning a single defection could sink the vote.
Tillis was scheduled to speak Sunday morning on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Democrats were unmoved by the Trump administration’s retreat on the Powell probe. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), the committee’s ranking Democrat, accused Republicans of being either naive or deliberately misleading the public. She noted that the White House had characterized the Powell investigation as ongoing, and that a separate probe targeting Fed governor Lisa Cook remained active.
“No Republican claiming to care about Fed independence should support moving forward the nomination of Kevin Warsh,” Warren said in a statement early Saturday, calling him “President Trump’s sock puppet.”
Warren and other Democrats note that Trump has repeatedly sought to browbeat and pressure Powell and the Fed into lowering interest rates, insulting him and threatening to fire him, in a break from the Fed’s traditional independence. During Warsh’s confirmation hearing, they repeatedly pressed Warsh on whether he would act independently of the White House on interest rates, which he said he would.
Powell’s term as Fed chair expires May 15, although he could elect to remain a member of the Fed’s seven-member board of governors through early 2028.
Powell had said he would stay on as Fed chair until his successor was confirmed, but Trump threatened to fire him if he did not depart when his term ended. That raised the specter of an uncertain and volatile situation at the central bank if Warsh’s confirmation continued to stall, a prospect that could have spooked the markets and sent shock waves through the economy.
That, in turn, raised the stakes for Warsh’s confirmation, putting pressure on the White House to find a way around Tillis’s objections. While the ultimate outcome remains uncertain, the Justice Department’s decision to drop the investigation marked a rare retreat for the Trump administration and its drive to punish the president’s perceived enemies.
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