Federal Reserve

By Dropping Her Criminal Probe of Jerome Powell, Jeanine Pirro Confirms Its Political Motivation

Even Republican critics of the Federal Reserve chairman's performance rejected the notion that he had broken the law by lying about the renovation of the central bank's headquarters.

Jacob Sullum | 4.27.2026 3:50 PM

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL Add Reason to Google

Media Contact & Reprint Requests

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell (Sha Hanting/China News Service/VCG/Newscom)

"This investigation continues," Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, declared last Wednesday, referring to the criminal probe of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that she launched in November. "I am going forward. We are appealing the decision of Judge Boasberg."

Pirro was referring to a March 11 ruling in which James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, quashed two grand jury subpoenas seeking information about the over-budget renovation of the central bank's Washington, D.C., headquarters and Powell's allegedly dishonest testimony about that project during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on June 25. But on Friday, two days after saying she was determined to continue her probe of Powell, Pirro announced that she was dropping it.

It is not hard to see why. Boasberg concluded that the investigation was a transparent attempt to intimidate Powell, whom President Donald Trump has long criticized for failing to deliver the interest-rate cuts he wanted. Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, agreed with that assessment. Tillis had vowed to block confirmation of Trump's nominee to replace Powell as Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh, until the Justice Department "drops their bogus investigation into Chairman Powell," which he said "threatens the independence of the Fed."

Pirro's investigation of Powell was another example of Trump's efforts to punish his enemies by weaponizing the criminal justice system. That pattern includes Pirro's attempt to prosecute members of Congress for constitutionally protected speech and the dismissed indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The aborted case against Powell is especially striking because even Republicans who are critical of his performance as Fed chairman agreed there was no evidence that he had broken the law.

The central allegation against Powell was that he lied when he told the Senate Banking Committee that the Fed headquarters renovation did not include luxurious features that had been described in press reports. In a June 24 letter to Powell, several members of the committee asked him about amenities such as "rooftop garden terraces, ornate water features, new elevators that drop board members off directly in........

© Reason.com