U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Democrats call to delay Kevin Warsh Fed Chair nomination and seek hearing on Trump role in investigations of Powell and Cook

All eleven Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs sent a letter to Committee Chair Tim Scott urging him to delay any nomination proceedings for Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, until criminal investigations involving Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook are closed. The lawmakers also asked the Committee to hold a public hearing to assess whether President Trump has been directing those investigations, ahead of a Warsh hearing that has been scheduled for Tuesday, April 21. The letter, led by Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren and signed by the Committee’s Democratic members, cites a Justice Department criminal investigation into Powell that it says involved grand jury subpoenas to the Federal Reserve in January 2026, and a separate criminal investigation into Cook for alleged mortgage fraud. It characterises the probes as “pretextual” and part of a broader effort to take control of the Fed, and argues it would be inappropriate to proceed with a new Fed Chair nomination while investigations of sitting Board members are ongoing and while, according to the letter, Trump has publicly threatened a federal judge who found the Department of Justice probe to lack merit.