Republican US senator backs move to block Trump Fed nominees after Powell indictment threat

WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski on Monday threw her support behind fellow Republican Thom Tillis' plan to block President Donald Trump's ?Fed nominees after the Justice Department over the weekend threatened to indict ?Fed chairman Jerome Powell.

"The stakes are too high ?to look the other way: ?if the Federal Reserve ?loses its independence, the stability of our markets and the broader ?economy will suffer," Murkowski ?wrote on X.

Murkowski is one of a small handful of Trump's fellow Republicans who have ?shown themselves willing to ?vote against his ?wishes at times in the Senate, where his party holds a 53-47 majority. Since returning to ?office last year, Trump has been increasingly publicly pressuring the Fed to cut interest rates, breaking with long-standing practice meant to insulate the central bank from political pressure and allowing it to focus ?on economic ?data.

The Alaska lawmaker said she had spoken earlier on Monday with Powell, who on Sunday ?said the U.S. central bank had received subpoenas last week that he called "pretexts" aimed instead at the Fed's basing interest rates on policy and not Trump's preferences.

Murkowski called the DOJ threat "nothing more than an attempt at coercion," adding that ?Congress should investigate the department if it believes probing the Fed was warranted over renovation cost overruns, which she called "not unusual." (Reporting ?by Bhargav Acharya and Susan Heavey; editing by Scott Malone)