Jeanine Pirro Abruptly Ends Investigation Into Trump Nemesis Jerome Powell
Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, announced Friday the investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is closed.
In a post on X, Pirro said the Fed’s inspector general “has been asked to scrutinize the building costs overruns — in the billions of dollars — that have been borne by taxpayers.”
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While that’s happening, the investigation into Powell — which prosecutors have said is about potential fraud charges related to renovations of the Federal Reserve building, and statements during a testimony Powell gave to a congressional committee — is ending.
“The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers,” Pirro said in her statement. “I expect a comprehensive report in short order and am confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas.”
Pirro added she “will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.”
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The development coincides with President Donald Trump’s push to install Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair when Powell’s term as chair ends in May. Powell can decide whether to stay on the board to finish his term as a Fed governor till January 2028, and he had vowed to stay on at least as long as the investigation into the renovations continued.
Trump has made no secret of his distaste for Powell, repeatedly calling for him to resign and threatening to fire him, purportedly for cost overruns on the renovation.
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At one point, Trump made a show of touring the construction site so he could humiliate Powell for the $2.5 billion remodel, only to have it backfire when Powell called him out for using falsely inflated figures.
Ironically, the project is over budget at least partially because Trump appointees overruled the project’s architects and made them use white marble instead of glass.
Powell long asserted the Fed’s independence and resisted Trump’s command he lower interest rates ― something Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is concerned Warsh, as Trump’s pick, will not do.
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“This is just an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair,” Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, said in a statement.
“Anyone who believes Donald Trump’s corrupt scheme to take over the Fed … is fooling themselves. The Senate should not proceed with the nomination of Kevin Warsh.”
