Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced Sunday that he will no longer block Kevin Warsh's nomination to lead the Federal Reserve, removing the last major obstacle to a confirmation vote that could reshape American monetary policy before a tight May 15 deadline.
Tillis had been the lone Republican holdout on the Senate Banking Committee, refusing to advance Warsh's nomination while the Department of Justice pursued a criminal investigation into current Fed Chair Jerome Powell. On Friday, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced on X that she was ending the probe and referring the matter to the Fed's own inspector general. By Sunday morning, Tillis was on NBC's "Meet the Press" declaring the standoff over.
The reversal matters because Senate Banking Committee Republicans now hold the votes to push Warsh's nomination to the full Senate floor over unified Democratic opposition. And Republicans are expected to confirm him there, too, if they can beat the clock.
The DOJ investigation dates to January, when Powell disclosed that federal prosecutors had opened a criminal inquiry into his management of a $2.5 billion renovation of two Federal Reserve buildings in Washington. Powell responded with a blunt video, calling the probe "intimidation" and characterizing it as part of administration efforts to pressure the Fed into cutting interest rates.
A federal judge sided with Powell in March, blocking the DOJ's subpoenas. The judge found they had been issued for the improper purpose of getting Powell to lower rates or resign. Pirro said she would appeal. As recently as last week, she signaled publicly that she intended to press on.
Then, on Friday, she reversed course. Pirro said on X that the investigation was finished and that the Fed's inspector general, already months into its own review of the renovations, would take over. The abrupt about-face raised eyebrows, but it gave Tillis what he needed.
As the New York Post reported, Tillis had made the DOJ probe a line in the sand. He viewed it as a threat to the central bank's political independence, a principle that matters to markets, to bondholders, and to anyone with a 401(k).
On "Meet the Press," Tillis left no ambiguity. He told viewers he had received direct assurances from DOJ officials that the investigation is over, not paused, not shelved, but done.
Breitbart reported Tillis saying that DOJ officials told him the probe is "completely and fully ended" and would only be reopened if triggered by a criminal referral from an inspector general. That distinction matters. It means the door is not entirely shut on accountability for the renovation spending, but the political weapon, if that is what it was, has been put down.
Tillis framed his position not as capitulation but as a principled stand that achieved its goal. He had pledged to block Warsh until the Powell investigation was dropped. The investigation was dropped. So Tillis moved on.
"I am prepared to move on with the confirmation. Mr. Warsh, I think he's going to be a great Fed chair."
That quote, delivered on national television, effectively ended months of limbo for Warsh and gave the White House a clear runway. The pattern of Democrats suffering Senate defeats on high-stakes votes looks likely to continue.
Warsh is no stranger to the Fed. He served as a governor from 2006 to 2011, a tenure that spanned the financial crisis. His confirmation hearing on Tuesday gave senators a preview of the kind of Fed chair he intends to be.
Tillis described Warsh's credentials as "impeccable" at that hearing. Warsh himself laid out an agenda that will make progressive economists uncomfortable: he promised to overhaul the Fed's approach to monetary policy and to cooperate more closely with the Treasury and other parts of government on non-monetary policy matters.
He also told lawmakers that Trump did not try to get him to promise to lower interest rates, a direct rebuttal to the narrative that the White House is trying to install a puppet at the central bank. And he said he was not worried that tariffs were contributing to inflation, going so far as to suggest that Fed policymakers may be using measures of inflation that overestimate price pressures.
That last point will draw fire. But it also signals that Warsh is willing to challenge the Fed's own orthodoxy, something the institution could use after years of being late to recognize inflation, late to raise rates, and late to acknowledge the damage done to ordinary Americans by runaway prices.
Powell's leadership term expires May 15. With roughly three weeks to go, the timeline is extraordinarily tight. During one of those weeks, the Senate is scheduled to be on recess. The Senate has only once before confirmed a Fed nominee in less than three weeks.
Powell has said he would serve as temporary chair should Warsh not be confirmed before the deadline. That fallback exists, but it is hardly ideal. A lame-duck Fed chair presiding over monetary policy while markets wait for his replacement would inject uncertainty at a moment when the economy can least afford it.
The Washington Times reported Tillis saying the DOJ's decision "will allow Mr. Warsh to move on with his confirmation on time." He also said he had received the assurances he needed "to feel like they were not using the DOJ as a weapon to threaten the independence of the Fed." That framing, the DOJ as a potential weapon, captures why this episode rattled even Republicans who wanted Warsh confirmed.
The broader question of internal party fractures shaping Senate outcomes has been a recurring theme in this Congress. Tillis's holdout was brief compared to some, but it carried real weight because it threatened to stall a marquee nomination.
Senate Democrats opposed Warsh's nomination as a bloc. But with Tillis back in the fold, the Banking Committee's Republican majority is sufficient to advance the pick over that unified opposition. The full Senate is expected to follow.
Democrats argued that the DOJ probe raised legitimate questions about Fed governance. Powell himself framed the investigation as politically motivated intimidation. The federal judge who blocked the subpoenas agreed, at least on the question of improper purpose. With the probe now closed, Democrats have lost their most potent procedural argument against moving forward.
The episode is another reminder that when Washington's institutional fights play out in real time, the side that overreaches often hands its opponents the moral high ground. The DOJ investigation, whatever its original merits regarding the $2.5 billion renovation, became a political liability the moment a federal judge ruled the subpoenas were issued to pressure Powell on rates. Once that finding was on the books, the investigation's days were numbered.
Recent weeks have shown that GOP defectors can sink their own party's priorities when they choose to act on principle. Tillis's holdout followed that same pattern, but unlike some defections, this one ended with the senator getting what he asked for and then stepping aside.
The Banking Committee will need to vote Warsh out of committee. Then the full Senate must confirm him. The recess week complicates scheduling. And while the Fed's inspector general continues its own review of the renovation spending, that probe is an internal accountability matter, not a DOJ criminal investigation aimed at the sitting chair.
Warsh's promise to rethink monetary policy and work more closely with Treasury will face scrutiny from both sides. Progressives will call it a threat to independence. Conservatives who watched the Fed print trillions and then scramble to contain the resulting inflation may see it differently. The question is whether Warsh can deliver a Fed that is both independent in its rate-setting and accountable in its spending, two things that should not be mutually exclusive but somehow became so.
The broader erosion of Democratic political leverage continues to shape these fights. When your best argument against a nominee depends on a DOJ probe that a federal judge already found was improperly motivated, you are not operating from a position of strength.
Tillis got his assurances. Warsh gets his vote. The Fed gets a new chair, if the Senate can move fast enough. And the DOJ gets a lesson that even allies will push back when prosecutorial tools look more like political ones.
