Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott on Wednesday said he did not believe Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell committed a crime during his congressional testimony last year about the central bank’s headquarter renovations.

“I was the one asking the questions,” he said on Fox Business. “Jay Powell was responding to me. Obviously, he and I have very, very strong disagreements on many issues, everyone.”

He said it was time for a new head of the central bank and called Powell “inept” but added: “ineptness or being incompetent is not a criminal act.”

“I believe what he did was made a gross error in judgment,” Scott said. “He was not prepared for that hearing. I do not believe that he committed a crime during the hearing.”

The Justice Department issued subpoenas last month to the Fed, probing his statements to Congress, a fact revealed by Powell himself in an unprecedented video message where he accused the administration of using the investigation to pressure him to lower interest rates. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), saying he fears for the Fed’s independence, has said he will not vote to advance any Fed nominees until the administration has finished its probe.

Scott said the issue would be “resolved,” adding: “Thom Tillis will be voting for Kevin Warsh as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.”

Tillis has spoken positively of Warsh but said his stance regarding the DOJ investigation has not changed.

Scott’s comments mark the first time that the powerful banking head has substantively weighed in on the administration’s move.

Congress just launched itself onto a nine-day runway to overcome deep partisan divides over the fate of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda — and conditions are trending toward another lengthy shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security.

According to several senators, DHS funding talks were largely on hold while lawmakers waited for the House to clear the Senate-passed, five-bill spending package Tuesday and end the brief partial government shutdown. Now lawmakers have little time left before the Feb. 13 deadline to reach a bipartisan agreement on major changes to DHS policies and avoid a funding lapse that will also affect TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA and other agencies — and Democrats are threatening to block any extension of the two-week stopgap measure.

— A stalemate over demands: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Democrats plan to formally present Republicans a proposal soon for placing more guardrails around ICE and Customs and Border Protection. The wishlist could include tighter rules on the use of warrants, a ban on masks and mandates for body cameras and IDs on federal agents.

There’s broad GOP opposition to many of these ideas. Speaker Mike Johnson argued Tuesday that unmasking would be especially dangerous for the agents.

“I can tell you that we are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants,” Johnson added. “It is unimplementable.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune believes negotiations will need to be primarily between Democrats and the White House, though Republicans will play a part. He said Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland funding panel, will take the lead for the GOP.

Republicans want to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities,” localities that don’t comply with federal immigration laws. Some are also mulling whether to try and attach bigger immigration provisions onto the DHS stopgap bill, like increasing penalties for immigrants who cross the border illegally.

But trying to crack down on “sanctuary cities” has long been a non-starter for Democrats. “We’re not going to make people unsafe, this is about making people safe,” said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, her chamber’s top Democratic appropriator.

— A slippery stopgap slope: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Tuesday that “an additional [continuing resolution], from our standpoint, is off the table” despite warnings from Thune and other Republicans that another short-term punt may be necessary to buy more time for talks.

Some lawmakers are increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for reaching any DHS deal given Congress’ perennial struggle to agree on immigration policy.

“I’m a little skeptical of the entire project here of trying to lard up an appropriations bill that funds critical agencies with a whole bunch of statutory restrictions,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.

Thune warned there’s another possibility: If negotiations drag on too long, lawmakers could eventually be forced to swallow a measure that keeps the status quo at DHS for the remainder of the fiscal year with no policy changes or new funding levels.

“My assumption would be that even if we don’t have an agreement that we would do a CR for some foreseeable amount of time” to continue discussions, Thune told Blue Light News, “or maybe at some point we have to resolve to a full-year CR.”

What else we’re watching:   

— Tech hearing: House Judiciary will hold a hearing on Europe’s tech laws at 10 a.m. It’s the latest escalation in the transatlantic fight over regulations that Republicans claim disproportionately silence conservative speech online. European countries view the regulations as crucial guardrails for ensuring online safety and fair market competition, while American tech companies argue such measures target them unfairly.

Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Gabby Miller contributed to this report.

Congress has 10 days to prevent another shutdown — this one exclusively affecting the Department of Homeland Security. There’s not much optimism about a deal.

At issue is one of the thorniest issues in national politics — federal immigration enforcement, including new guardrails for agencies and repercussions for the local jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with them.

Already, Republicans are rejecting central demands from Democrats, including tightening warrant requirements and banning federal agents from wearing masks. Democrats are pouring cold water on a GOP push to target so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned Tuesday that getting an agreement to President Donald Trump’s desk by the new Feb. 13 deadline is an “impossibility.”

“We’ve got a very short timeframe in which to do this, which I argued against,” he said, referring to his opposition to the two-week DHS punt Democrats insisted on.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, said Tuesday that another short-term patch was “off the table” for Democrats.

Together those comments portend a potentially lengthy shutdown that would disproportionately impact the DHS functions that don’t involve immigration enforcement, including TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard. That’s because agencies like ICE and Border Patrol that have been at the center of the Democratic uproar received funding through the domestic policy megabill Republicans enacted in July.

That reality had a critical mass of Senate Democrats ready to swallow full-year DHS funding last month that held agency budgets flat and passed the House with only seven Democratic votes. But that plan evaporated on Jan. 24, when DHS agents killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis and sparked bipartisan calls for new strictures on the Trump administration.

Thune and other Republicans are already warning that they believe they will need to buy more time after the Feb. 13 deadline. Negotiations over an immigration enforcement deal have largely been on hold, according to several senators, as the House wrestled with the larger spending package that finally passed Tuesday.

So far, Republicans and Democrats can’t even agree on who will be doing the negotiating. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is putting the onus on Thune. But Thune and other Republicans believe any viable deal will need to be negotiated primarily by the White House while keeping congressional Republicans “engaged.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said Tuesday that a deal would be difficult “without Trump deciding to drag Republicans in a direction that is normally uncomfortable for them.”

“But that’s different from John Thune just declaring that he’s out,” he added. “The majority leader can’t take himself out of the negotiation.”

A lengthy DHS shutdown could be uncomfortable quickly for both parties. While ICE and Customs and Border Protection would largely have a free hand to continue immigration enforcement, the Coast Guard and TSA would lose their appropriations — potentially snarling airports and threatening paychecks for an entire military branch. The Secret Service and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would also be affected.

Plenty of members are skeptical there will be a deal at all, given Congress’ perennial struggle to reach an agreement on anything even tangentially related to immigration.

“I have to say that I’m a little skeptical of this entire enterprise,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. “I’m a little skeptical of the entire project here of trying to lard up an appropriations bill that funds critical agencies with a whole bunch of statutory restrictions.”

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) said of the incipient negotiation, “I can’t say it feels like good faith.”

Democrats have outlined several key demands for any negotiations and are expected to formally present a proposal “very shortly,” according to Schumer.

But while Republicans have expressed openness to some of the Democratic proposals, such as body cameras and deescalation training, there is broad opposition to requiring immigration officers to obtain judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants before seeking apprehensions. Many, including Speaker Mike Johnson, also oppose requiring federal agents to remove masks, arguing it would be a possible safety threat.

“I can tell you that we are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants,” Johnson said Tuesday. “It is unimplementable. It cannot be done, and it should not be done. It’s not necessary.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for language cracking down on “sanctuary cities” that don’t comply with ICE and CBP to be included in any agreement that includes new restrictions on those agencies. Other Republicans are mulling trying to attach bigger immigration provisions, including increasing penalties for immigrants who cross the border illegally or re-enter the country illegally.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) used an Oval Office bill signing with Trump Tuesday to make his pitch for a sanctuary cities crackdown as part of any negotiation to extend DHS funding.

“If you want a debate on how to solve this problem, show up next week,” he said.

Trump encouraged the push: “I hope you’re going to press that very hard,” he told Graham.

But the policies Graham and other Republicans are proposing — such as imposing criminal penalties on state and local officials who “willfully interfere” with immigration enforcement — have long been a nonstarter for Democrats.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said it already would be “difficult” to get his caucus to support another funding punt, noting that roughly half of his Democratic colleagues already voted against the last spending package.

And trying to link sanctuary cities to the debate over immigration enforcement tactics, Durbin added, is “not realistic.”

“There’s so many different versions of sanctuary law in these communities and states,” he said. “What we’re talking about is funding this agency, but making sure there are reforms before funding.”

Other Senate Democrats who voted for the spending deal last week — including Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee — are already warning that Republicans shouldn’t count on their votes again for another punt.

Another senior Democratic appropriator, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, said she believed there was enough time to get a deal if negotiators were “committed.”

“But it would help if they start negotiating,” Shaheen said.