{"id":18620,"date":"2026-02-03T22:01:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T22:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/powell-pardon-wouldnt-end-fed-blockade-tillis-says\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T22:01:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T22:01:41","slug":"powell-pardon-wouldnt-end-fed-blockade-tillis-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/powell-pardon-wouldnt-end-fed-blockade-tillis-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Powell pardon wouldn\u2019t end Fed blockade, Tillis says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A presidential pardon of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell would not end Sen. Thom Tillis<\/a>\u2019 one-man blockade of central bank nominees, the North Carolina Republican said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Only the Justice Department resolving its investigation into Powell\u2019s Senate testimony on a massive Fed renovation project would suffice, he added, doubling down on his intention to use his vote on the Senate Banking Committee as a bulwark against any attempt<\/a> to dilute the bank\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n

Tillis is the main obstacle to the swift confirmation of Kevin Warsh<\/a>, President Donald Trump\u2019s nominee to replace Powell as Fed chair. He has vowed to oppose any Fed nominee until the Powell investigation ends.<\/p>\n

A pardon could be a fast and definitive way for Trump to end any legal peril for Powell, but Tillis called the idea \u201csilly\u201d and a \u201cmistake\u201d because it could imply that Powell is guilty of committing perjury during his appearance last year before the Banking Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cA pardon to me almost validates the whole notion for the investigation,\u201d Tillis said. \u201cIf they think they\u2019ve got a valid case, then we\u2019ll just see it through to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Republicans holding a 13-11 majority on the Banking panel, Tillis\u2019 opposition is enough to prevent Warsh from getting advanced out of committee unless he gets support from Democrats on the panel.<\/p>\n

Tillis said Tuesday that he thought Warsh would be a \u201cfine\u201d Fed chair \u201cat some point in the future if not this Congress, then the next Congress, if they don\u2019t get this investigation done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not budging one inch,\u201d he added. \u201cThis is foundational to Fed independence and if you reward this sort of behavior and there\u2019s no compelling evidence that could convince me or a jury that he\u2019s guilty of it then you\u2019ve got to stand on Fed independence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump batted down a question Monday about whether he would ask prosecutors to drop the Powell case in order to clear a path for Warsh. He instead told reporters that Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C., would \u201ctake it to the end and see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to Trump\u2019s remarks, Tillis said it showed \u201can area where we\u2019re in agreement this week \u2014 we\u2019re both willing to go all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A presidential pardon of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell would not end Sen. Thom Tillis\u2019 one-man blockade of central bank nominees, the North Carolina Republican said Tuesday. Only the Justice Department resolving its investigation into Powell\u2019s Senate testimony on a massive Fed renovation project would suffice, he added, doubling down on his intention to use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}