The Department of Justice on Friday dropped its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, removing a major hurdle to the Senate confirming President Donald Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh to replace him. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia, said in a post on X that she is abandoning the probe. Her announcement came three days after Warsh testified before the Senate Banking Committee on his nomination. Pirro had said just Wednesday that she was committed to continuing the criminal probe, which had been crippled by a federal judge’s ruling quashing subpoenas her office issued to the Fed. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and Banking Committee member, had an effective hold on the full Senate from voting to confirm Warsh as Fed chair unless the criminal investigation ended. Pirro, in her announcement that she is dropping the investigation, said that instead of her office continuing the probe, the Federal Reserve’s inspector general “has been asked this morning” to investigate cost overruns in the multibillion-dollar renovation …