WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Thom Tillis from North Carolina suggested Thursday he could support a compromise that would allow the Senate Banking Committee to start hearings on Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Reserve.
“What I heard being floated could be an off-ramp,” Tillis told reporters Thursday after a meeting of Senate Republicans. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has suggested that the banking committee, rather than the Justice Department, investigate cost overruns on the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two Washington, D.C., office buildings, according to other senators at the meeting.
Tillis said last month that he would block any consideration of Warsh or any other Trump nominees to the Fed until the Justice Department drops a criminal investigation of Fed chair Jerome Powell over his testimony last summer about the renovation. Tillis on Thursday reiterated that view in comments on the Senate floor.
The investigation was revealed last month by Powell in an unusually blunt video statement, in which he said it was part of an effort by the Trump administration to force the Fed to lower its key interest rate. The Justice Department has subpoenaed Powell over comments he made about the building renovation durin