That someone was long expected to be Kevin Hassett, the head of Trump’s National Economic Council. Hassett, who was once a widely respected conservative economist, has in recent years taken a sharp turn into Trumpist propaganda. A Hassett chairmanship therefore augured reckless rate cuts that could trigger a fresh bout of dangerous inflation. This spooked Wall Street. Major bond investors met with the administration to tell them how worried they were. After Trump’s Department of Justice launched its investigation into Powell, Republican officials including Senate Majority Leader John Thune questioned the probe’s legitimacy and asserted the importance of central-bank independence. Senator Thom Tillis, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said that he would refuse to vote on a nominee for Fed chair until the Powell investigation had finished.