The eleven Democratic members of the Senate Banking Committee today called for the committee to delay the nomination hearing for Kevin Warsh to be Federal Reserve chairman until the Trump administration drops its investigations into current Chairman Jerome Powell and Governor Lisa Cook.
The Justice Department opened an investigation last year into cost overruns related to the renovation of the Fed’s headquarters. Powell has denied wrongdoing and accused the administration of targeting him because the Fed board hasn’t lowered interest rates as quickly as President Trump would like.
Trump also attempted to fire Cook after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte alleged that she made false statements on mortgage agreements. So far, the courts have blocked her termination from taking place. The U.S. Supreme Court considered the case in January but has not yet released a decision.
The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Warsh’s nomination on April 21. In a letter, the committee’s Democrats urged Chairman Tim Scott (R-N.C.) to delay the hearing and instead hold an inquiry “to assess President Trump’s involvement in directing these criminal investigations.”
“As we wrote to you previously, it would be ‘absurd on its face to allow President Trump to handpick the next chair of the Federal Reserve as his Department of Justice actively pursues criminal investigations of not one, but two sitting members of the Federal Reserve Board,’” they wrote. “It would also be inappropriate to move forward with Mr. Warsh’s nomination as the president publicly threatens the federal judge who found the DOJ’s probe to lack merit.”
