“I am prepared to move on with the confirmation of Mr. Warsh. I think he’s going to be a great Fed chair,” Tillis told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” two days after the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia said her office’s investigation of the Fed’s multibillion-dollar building renovations was over. Powell’s brief congressional testimony last summer about that work was also under review.
“I believe that there will not be any wrongdoing. May we find a little stupid here in terms of somebody responsible for the project making a decision they shouldn’t? Maybe. But it doesn’t rise to a criminal prosecution. That was my problem to begin with because I feel like there were prosecutors in D.C. that thought this was going to be a lever to have Mr. Powell leave early,” he said.
The committee on Saturday said it planned to vote Wednesday on Warsh’s nomination. The ranking Democrat, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, responded with a statement that “no Republican claiming to care about Fed independence should support moving forward the nomination of Kevin Warsh, who proved in his nomination hearing to be nothing more than President Trump’s sock puppet.”
At a hearing last week, Warsh told senators he never promised the White House that he would cut interest rates and pledged to be “an independent actor” if confirmed as chair. Hours before that, Trump had been asked in a CNBC interview whether he would be disappointed if Warsh did not immediately cut rates. “I would,” the president said.
Without the constraints of a political campaign, Tillis has spoken out forcefully about Powell, decrying the inquiry by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a longtime Trump ally, as a “vindictive prosecution” and suggested it threatened the Fed’s longtime independence from day-to-day politics. Tillis told NBC that he had gotten assurances from the Justice Department that he needed “to feel like they were not using DOJ as a weapon to threaten the independence of the Fed. So this will allow Mr. Warsh to move on with his confirmation.”
On Saturday, Trump was asked by reporters whether there was now smooth sailing for Warsh with the end of the Justice Department’s investigation. “I imagine it’s smooth,” Trump said, adding that his nominee “is going to be fantastic.” The president said he still wanted to find out “how can a building of that size cost … whatever it’s going to be.”
Trump appointed Powell as chair in 2017 during his first administration and has for years attempted to pressure the central bank to cut short-term interest rate.
Even after a new Fed chair is in place, Powell could elect to stay on the board to finish his term as a Fed governor, which lasts until January 2028. He has told reporters he had not yet decided whether to do so.
