The Senate moved a step closer to confirming Kevin Warsh, the nominee for chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, with a procedural vote Monday.

The Senate voted 49-44 to invoke cloture on Warsh’s nomination to the Fed board. The chamber will later need to take a distinct vote on his separate nomination as chair. Confirmation to both roles is expected this week. Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Chris Coons, D-Del., who voted to invoke cloture, were the only senators to cross party lines.

Warsh is slated to replace Jerome Powell, whose term as Fed chair ends on Friday. Powell, in a departure from recent Fed practice, said he will remain on the board because of uncertainty over whether the Justice Department will reopen an investigation into the cost of renovations at the Fed headquarters. Powell’s term on the board ends in 2028.

The Senate’s procedural step comes amid President Donald Trump’s effort to get the Fed to lower interest rates. The DOJ’s investigation of the renovation cost was widely seen as part of the campaign to pressure Powell on monetary policy. But that effort backfired when Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he would oppose any Fed nominee until the investigation was dropped. 

When the DOJ said it would drop the probe and leave it to the Fed’s inspector general to examine the costs, Tillis ended his opposition to Warsh. Tillis’ vote in the Senate Banking Committee on April 29 helped get the nominee to the floor this week. 

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the prosecutor who announced the end to the DOJ investigation in April, said at the time that she would restart a criminal investigation “should the facts warrant doing so.”

The ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Warsh would be Trump’s “sock puppet” at the Fed. She and other Democrats also said administration pledges to drop the investigation into Powell can’t be trusted.