When President Donald Trump nominated Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve during his first term, the president was seen as making the safest possible choice for one of the safest possible stretches of modern finance, a central bank boss with a history of rarely rocking the boat and tended not to dissent from what the rest of his peers wanted.

More chaotic times call for a more independent Fed chairman, and to replace Powell, whose second term as chairman ends in May, Trump has made the equally inspired and market-settling choice to nominate Kevin Warsh, the former maverick member of the Great Recession-era Federal Reserve Board of Governors, as Fed chairman.

Warsh may be the only nominee capable of surviving the political brutality of confirmation on the heels of the Justice Department’s unprecedented decision to launch a criminal probe into Powell, widely regarded as the White House’s intentional escalation of Trump’s incursion on the central bank’s independence. Throughout a lengthy vetting process, the telegenic Warsh retained the favor of the temperamental Trump while instilling confidence in both the bond market that determines the interest rates financing our $38.5 trillion national debt and the........

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