Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has endured the year-long parade of attacks, threats, and insults from President Donald Trump with the sort of reserve expected of nonpartisan public officials — until Sunday.
In a video released on social media, Powell revealed that the Department of Justice — through the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office — had opened an investigation into Powell’s oversight of renovations being made to the Federal Reserve’s historic headquarters.
“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president,” Powell, whose term as chair will end in May, said. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”
Powell, who has worked in American monetary policy since the 1980s, has been a public target of Trump, who seems to believe he should control the nation’s traditionally independent monetary policy (along with the rest of the federal government). Trump has repeatedly bashed Powell and the reserve for refusing to lower the federal interest rate, calling Powell a “stupid person” and threatening to fire him from his position, despite lacking the authority to do so.
The move to launch a criminal investigation into Powell — a now-common intimidation tactic the president has used against his political rivals — has drawn condemnation from members of Trump’s own party.
Sen. Tom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is retiring at the end of his term, wrote on social media that he would “oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed — including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy — until this legal matter is fully resolved.”
“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” he added. “It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) affirmed her support for Tillis, and called for an investigation into the motives behind the DOJ’s probe.
“If the Department of Justice believes an investigation into Chair Powell is warranted based on project cost overruns — which are not unusual — then Congress needs to investigate the Department of Justice,” Murkowski said in a statement issued on social media.
“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,” she added.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), ranking member of Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, noted that Trump was not only looking to replace Powell at the end of his term, but to push him out of the Fed’s board entirely. “Trump is abusing the authorities of the Department of Justice like a wannabe dictator so the Fed serves his interests, along with his billionaire friends. This Committee and the Senate should not move forward with any Trump nominee for the Fed, including Fed Chair,” Warren wrote in a statement.
In the House, Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) — chair of the House Financial Services Committee — called the investigation an “unnecessary distraction.”
“I know Mr. Powell to be a man of integrity with a strong commitment to public service. While over the years we have had our policy disagreements, I found him to be forthright, candid, and a person of the highest integrity,” Hill wrote.
Financial Services Committee member Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told Politico that while he personally felt the Fed was “late in addressing inflation under Joe Biden and has been woefully slow in lowering interest rates,” the “independence of the Federal Reserve is paramount and I oppose any effort to pressure them into action.”
On Fox Business, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) waved off the probe as a “troll” by the Trump administration, but said that there were “bigger issues to go after than this one.”
For its part, the White House is insisting that it had no hand in the DOJ’s decision to investigate Powell, despite the president’s open animosity towards the head of the Fed. Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he didn’t “know anything about it, but he’s certainly not very good at the Fed, and he’s not very good at building buildings.”
“I wouldn’t even think of doing it that way,” Trump added. “What should pressure him is the fact that rates are far too high. That’s the only pressure he’s got.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that “the president has made quite clear [that] Jerome Powell is bad at his job. As for whether or not he’s a criminal, that’s an answer the DOJ is going to have to find out, and it looks like they intend to find that out.”
But while the administration is publicly supportive of the DOJ’s probe, the consensus may not hold for the Republican Party at large — or even for Trump’s administration. According to Axios, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned the president directly that the Justice Department’s open targeting of Powell could create another “mess” for the administration.
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