Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) condemned President Trump’s nomination for the next Federal Reserve chair, staying true to his word of opposing all of the president’s nominees until the Department of Justice (DOJ) halts its investigation into the central bank’s current chair. 

Trump early Friday morning announced Federal Reserve board member Kevin Warsh as his pick to helm the nation’s central bank. Despite calling Warsh a “qualified nominee with a deep understanding of monetary policy,” Tillis said he can’t support the nomination while the DOJ continues an ongoing criminal probe into current Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

“My position has not changed: I will oppose the confirmation of any Federal Reserve nominee, including for the position of Chairman, until the DOJ’s inquiry into Chairman Powell is fully and transparently resolved,” Tillis wrote on social media Friday morning. 

Tillis, as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, would be able to stop the panel from approving Warsh and potentially prevent a full Senate confirmation vote.

“Tillis could be crucial in any vote to confirm a new Fed chair,” said Ian Katz, director at research firm Capital Alpha Partners.

Tillis was one of two GOP senators along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) who promised to block Trump’s nominees until Powell’s case is resolved. 

“The Department of Justice continues to pursue a criminal investigation into Chairman Jerome Powell based on committee testimony that no reasonable person could construe as possessing criminal intent,” Tillis wrote. “Protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve from political interference or legal intimidation is non-negotiable.”

Trump had been keen to remove Powell from office since 2018 after he refused to cut interest rates to levels of the president’s liking — often well below the economic consensus. Trump has also repeatedly emphasized his desire to have more influence over the central bank whose decisions on interest rates are supposed to be protected from political influence. 

Trump has insisted the DOJ’s probe into Powell has nothing to do with interest rates. At the same time, Trump claimed he didn’t know about the criminal probe despite his threats to sue Powell over the cost of renovations to the Fed, which the criminal probe allegedly concerns. 

Whether the probe concerns interest rates or not, experts have said the investigation is unlikely to reap the results Trump wants. 

“The criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is unlikely to influence the path for monetary policy, and could even backfire by making officials more reluctant to cut rates in the coming months and years,” Bernard Yaros, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in an analysis earlier this month.