1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I’m writing to ask you to use Kevin Warsh’s Fed chair confirmation as leverage to force answers on the Trump-IRS settlement talks. On April 17, the president’s lawyers filed a motion in federal court requesting a 90-day pause on his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS so they can negotiate a settlement. Trump told reporters in January, “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself.” DOJ formally represents the United States in that case, but the attorney general and deputy attorney general serve at the pleasure of the person suing the government. The career lawyers negotiating the terms answer up a chain that ends at the plaintiff. Warsh’s confirmation hearing is next week. You can’t block it alone, and a straightforward filibuster probably fails. But you can make your vote contingent on concrete answers from DOJ: who authorized the settlement discussions, whether anyone has recused, what ethics guidance was issued, and whether career attorneys raised objections. Senator Tillis has already tied his Warsh vote to the Powell probe. Precedent exists for conditioning confirmation votes on administration transparency. I’m not asking you to sink Warsh. I’m asking you to refuse to move forward on his confirmation — no unanimous consent, no cooperation on timing, a no vote on cloture if needed — until DOJ answers basic questions about how it’s handling litigation where the plaintiff is the president. This is the most concrete lever available. War powers votes keep failing. Oversight letters get ignored. Floor speeches don’t change outcomes. Confirmation procedure is where minority senators still have real power, and this is a case where the institutional concern is clear enough that even some Republicans might find it hard to dismiss. A sitting president should not be able to negotiate a multi-billion-dollar payment to himself from the agency he controls while the Senate processes his nominees as if nothing unusual is happening. You two have the vote. Please use it. Thank you for your time.