All posts tagged: Jerome Powell

Trump Fed pick Kevin Warsh clears key Senate hurdle, teeing up final vote

Trump Fed pick Kevin Warsh clears key Senate hurdle, teeing up final vote

Published by Sam Flores

The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday voted to advance Kevin Warsh’s nomination to lead the Federal Reserve, teeing up President Donald Trump’s pick for a final confirmation vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. The vote fell along party lines, with all 13 Republican members voting in favor of the nominee and all 11 Democrats voting against him. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the Banking panel’s ranking member, slammed Warsh before the vote, warning that his confirmation would erode the central bank’s independence from the executive branch. “The Trump economy is in real trouble. Inflation is up, job creation is down. The stink of stagflation is in the air, and President Trump is getting desperate,” Warren said. “A vote today by this committee to advance Mr. Warsh will bring the president one step closer to completing his illegal attempt to seize control of the Fed and to artificially juice the economy,” she said. Warsh cleared the hurdle, as expected, hours before the Fed was set to deliver its latest decision on interest rates – possibly for the last …

Tillis ends block of Fed chair nominee Warsh, clears way for Trump pick

Tillis ends block of Fed chair nominee Warsh, clears way for Trump pick

Published by Sam Flores

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., talks with reporters outside the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh, nominee to chairman of the Federal Reserve, in Dirksen building on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images Sen. Thom Tillis said Sunday he is willing to end his blockade of Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh after the U.S. Department of Justice dropped its criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Warsh now has a clear path to replacing Powell as the next leader of the Fed when Powell’s term expires in mid-May. The Senate Banking Committee is set to vote on his confirmation on Wednesday, and the full Senate could take it up shortly after. With Tillis’s support, Warsh’s confirmation is all but assured. “I am prepared to move on with the confirmation of Mr. Warsh, I think he’s going to be a great Fed chair,” Tillis, R-N.C., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We were very clear that we have assurances from the DOJ that …

Warren and Durbin criticize Pirro over decision to halt Powell probe

Warren and Durbin criticize Pirro over decision to halt Powell probe

Published by Sam Flores

The Department of Justice’s criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is merely “temporarily paused,” a pair of Democratic senators said in a letter sent to the department Friday and obtained first by CNBC. “Your announcement leaves the door wide open for you to relaunch the criminal probe against Chair Powell — or future baseless investigations into Powell or other Fed Governors and a future Fed Chair — should it once again become politically expedient for you to do so,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in the letter addressed to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. Pirro said in a statement Friday that the Fed’s inspector general had been asked to investigate cost overruns on an ongoing renovation project. Pirro didn’t specify who had made the request. Powell had last year asked the inspector general to look into the issue. Read more CNBC politics coverage “I have directed my office to close our investigation as the IG undertakes this inquiry,” Pirro said. “Note well, however, that I …

The threat to the Fed’s independence isn’t over

The threat to the Fed’s independence isn’t over

Published by Sam Flores

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Ferris Pirro speaks during a press conference at the Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., U.S., Aug. 12, 2025. Annabelle Gordon | Reuters President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the independence of the Federal Reserve. Friday’s dropping of a Justice Department probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell doesn’t fully resolve the threat, though it will clear a path to the confirmation of Trump’s nominee for chair, Kevin Warsh. “I think we would be foolish to conclude from this that the Fed is out of the woods,” said Lev Menand, a professor at Columbia Law School.  Warsh has long pledged to keep the Fed independent, including at his nomination hearing Tuesday. But it remains to be seen how he can hold up against a president who has said lowering interest rates was a litmus test for his nominee. Trump isn’t shy about telling normally independent parts of the federal government what to do. The Fed is one of the few holdouts that remain largely outside his control. …

DOJ ends Powell probe, boost for Trump’s Fed pick Warsh

DOJ ends Powell probe, boost for Trump’s Fed pick Warsh

Published by Sam Flores

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 …

DOJ won’t drop Fed probe, will appeal Powell subpoena block: Pirro

DOJ won’t drop Fed probe, will appeal Powell subpoena block: Pirro

Published by Sam Flores

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Wednesday doubled down on her investigation of the Federal Reserve, even as the controversial probe endangers the confirmation of Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s pick to replace central bank Chairman Jerome Powell. The criminal investigation centers on alleged cost overruns associated with the ongoing renovations of two historic Fed buildings in Washington. Powell has accused the Department of Justice of targeting him for refusing to obey Trump’s demand that the Fed sharply lower interest rates. The probe has raised concerns about the Fed’s independence from executive-branch interference — so much so that Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has vowed to block Warsh’s nomination until the DOJ drops it. At a press conference on Wednesday morning, Pirro said she would not back off. “The cost overruns on that building are well over a billion dollars. This investigation continues,” Pirro said. “I am in the legal lane. There are others who were in the political lane. I don’t intersect those two lanes,” she said. PIrro’s efforts hit a major snag last month when …

Warsh pushes his plan for ‘regime change’ at Senate hearing: Analysis

Warsh pushes his plan for ‘regime change’ at Senate hearing: Analysis

Published by Sam Flores

Kevin Warsh faced searching questions at his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday. Democrats and even at times Republicans challenged his complicated finances, his relationship to President Donald Trump and what often seems like a wide-eyed endorsement of the promise of artificial intelligence. But one core issue for Warsh went all but unquestioned: his plan for what he calls “regime change” at the Federal Reserve.  Warsh has planned for years to sharply change the way the Fed operates, down to the very definition of the word “inflation.” That plan came through the hearing largely intact, leaving Warsh in a strong position if confirmed quickly to attempt an overhaul of the Fed. Any attempt at major changes will certainly spark dissent and disagreement within the Fed, as will his efforts to quickly lower interest rates. But Warsh said Tuesday he welcomes a “good family fight,” and objections from the Fed’s other policymakers may only be an advantage in Warsh’s eyes as he seeks to overturn their way of doing business.  Warsh has faced attacks on his credibility since …

Kevin Warsh Fed hearing live updates: Confirmation hearing Tuesday AM

Kevin Warsh Fed hearing live updates: Confirmation hearing Tuesday AM

Published by Sam Flores

What you need to know  Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh will face the Senate Banking committee at 10 a.m. on Tuesday for a confirmation hearing. Warsh would be the wealthiest Fed chair if confirmed, he disclosed to the committee. The pick of President Donald Trump, Warsh would replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair. Kevin Warsh, the 56-year-old former Federal Reserve governor, is taking the hot seat at 10 a.m. for his Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing. Warsh will field questions on a wide range of issues, ranging from his views on monetary policy to his sprawling and complex personal finances. He would become the wealthiest Fed chair if confirmed. Some of the most important exchanges for his candidacy may center on how he views the boundaries between the Fed’s decision-making and politics. Questions about the Fed’s long-cherished independence have dominated the discourse surrounding the central bank during Trump’s second term. President Donald Trump, who originally nominated Jerome Powell for Fed chair during his first term in 2017, has waged a long-term campaign to try to browbeat the …

How Silicon Valley shaped Fed nominee Kevin Warsh

How Silicon Valley shaped Fed nominee Kevin Warsh

Published by Sam Flores

With his penchant for suits, ties and sweater vests, Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh doesn’t share the rumpled look of many of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs he calls friends. But they still count him as one of their own. “You wouldn’t be hanging out with us if you were as normal as you claim to be,” Palantir CEO Alex Karp told Warsh on a podcast in 2022. If confirmed by the Senate, Warsh wouldn’t just be the wealthiest Fed chair in history, he would also be the most tech savvy and the closest to the tech bro community to ever sit in the office. Warsh’s connection to Karp and other titans of Silicon Valley such as reclusive PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen go back decades — to college at Stanford and to investments made alongside some of them beginning soon after Warsh resigned as a Fed governor in 2011. Those connections and his focus on tech investments have shaped Warsh’s almost evangelical view of how …

Elizabeth Warren attacks Kevin Warsh over financial disclosures

Elizabeth Warren attacks Kevin Warsh over financial disclosures

Published by Sam Flores

Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks at a No Kings Day event on the Boston Common on March 28, 2026. Finn Gomez | Boston Globe | Getty Images Kevin Warsh’s newly released financial disclosures shed light on the Federal Reserve chair nominee’s vast wealth, but also raise questions about parts of his holdings that aren’t fully revealed in the paperwork. That could be a challenge for Warsh as he seeks to overcome a legacy of ethics scandals under the current chair, Jerome Powell. Warsh in filings to the Senate Tuesday disclosed owning assets worth roughly $135 million to $226 million. That is in addition to what Forbes estimates as a $1.9 billion fortune held by his wife, Jane Lauder, granddaughter of the cosmetics founder Estée Lauder. But Warsh’s disclosures don’t reveal everything about his wealth. For one, the forms ask only for reporting values in broad ranges, making precise calculations of his wealth impossible. Two individual assets are each listed as simply being worth over $50 million. Their worth could be just above that threshold, or far …