DOJ Ends Powell Inquiry, Unfreezing Senate Confirmation of Kevin Warsh as Next Fed Chair

Washington has periodically tried to bend the Federal Reserve to presidential will—Harry Truman’s open clash with Chair Marriner Eccles in 1948, Richard Nixon’s pressure on Arthur Burns in the early 1970s, and Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 brow-beating of William McChesney Martin are classic examples—but the 1951 Treasury-Fed Accord and post-Volcker norms largely insulated monetary policy for decades. Trump’s use of a DOJ investigation to squeeze Powell, and the Senate’s rapid about-face once the probe vanished, signals a renewed willingness to weaponize law-enforcement and confirmation mechanics to shape interest-rate policy. Over a 100-year arc, this moment tests whether the post-1951 principle of an apolitical central bank can survive in an era of hyper-partisan politics and heavy fiscal debts; if the precedent sticks, future presidents may find little resistance to installing pliant chairs whenever policy turns inconvenient, eroding the credibility anchor that has underpinned dollar stability since the Fed’s creation in 1913.