{"id":19875,"date":"2026-03-11T18:46:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T18:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/tillis-says-doj-probe-of-powell-reaching-the-point-of-the-absurd\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T18:46:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T18:46:47","slug":"tillis-says-doj-probe-of-powell-reaching-the-point-of-the-absurd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/tillis-says-doj-probe-of-powell-reaching-the-point-of-the-absurd\/","title":{"rendered":"Tillis says DOJ probe of Powell \u2018reaching the point of the absurd\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sen. Thom Tillis<\/a> (R-N.C.) on Wednesday suggested that the Justice Department should admit it made a mistake by launching an investigation related to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.<\/p>\n

Asked by reporters about a potential off-ramp to his objections to moving any Fed nominees \u2014 including President Donald Trump’s pick for chair, Kevin Warsh \u2014 until the DOJ probe is resolved, Tillis responded: \u201cI\u2019m not going to try and help them out of a box canyon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s one way out of a box canyon,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s admitting you made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Justice Department issued subpoenas in January to the Fed, probing Powell\u2019s statements to Congress about the central bank\u2019s headquarters renovations. The probe was revealed by the Fed chair himself in an unprecedented video message where he accused the administration of using the investigation to pressure him to lower interest rates. Tillis has expressed similar fears.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got seven witnesses at this alleged scene of the crime \u2014 Republican members of the Banking Committee, including the chair, who said no crime was committed,\u201d Tillis said. \u201cWhat part of this is not reaching the point of the absurd?\u201d<\/p>\n

The senator also said in a post on X<\/a> that he was awaiting clarification from the D.C. District Court, an apparent reference to an effort by the Fed<\/a> to challenge the subpoenas. Typically, pre-indictment grand jury proceedings remain sealed.<\/p>\n

Tillis said it was his hope that the issue would be resolved in time for Warsh to be confirmed to take over as Fed chief when Powell\u2019s term ends in May. <\/p>\n

He met with Warsh on Tuesday and said in his post that, “He possesses impeccable credentials and a clear vision for maintaining the Fed’s independence while achieving its dual mandate. It is unfortunate that an ongoing investigation prevents me from voting.”<\/p>\n

Connor O’Brien and Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Wednesday suggested that the Justice Department should admit it made a mistake by launching an investigation related to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Asked by reporters about a potential off-ramp to his objections to moving any Fed nominees \u2014 including President Donald Trump’s pick for chair, Kevin Warsh \u2014 until […]<\/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-19875","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\/19875","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=19875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}