{"id":630027,"date":"2026-04-25T13:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T13:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/630027\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T13:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T13:33:13","slug":"us-justice-department-drops-criminal-investigation-of-federal-reserve-chairman-jerome-powell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/630027\/","title":{"rendered":"US Justice Department drops criminal investigation of Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US Justice Department has ended its investigation into Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, clearing a major roadblock to the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as his successor.<\/p>\n

Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host now serving as the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, said on Friday that her office was ending its probe into the Federal Reserve’s extensive building renovations because the organisation’s own inspector-general would scrutinise them instead.<\/p>\n

The move could lead to a swift confirmation vote by the Senate for Mr Warsh, a former top Federal Reserve official whom President Donald Trump nominated in January to replace Mr Powell, whose term as chair ends on May 15.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro says she won’t hesitate to restart the investigation if the facts warrant it. (Reuters: Nathan Howard)<\/p>\n

Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, had said he would oppose Mr Warsh until the investigation was resolved, effectively blocking his confirmation.<\/p>\n

Republicans praised Mr Warsh during a Tuesday hearing, even as Democrats questioned his independence from Mr Trump, the lack of transparency around some of his financial holdings, and what they said was his flip-flopping on interest rates.<\/p>\n

Still, Mr Trump’s previous appointment to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, Stephen Miran, was approved by the full Senate just 13 days after his nomination.<\/p>\n

Probe focused on cost overruns<\/p>\n

Ms Pirro’s investigation<\/a> focused on a $US2.5 billion ($3.49 billion) building renovation that Mr Trump criticised sharply last year for its cost overruns.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump visited the building last July, and on camera presented to Mr Powell an inflated cost estimate, which Mr Powell corrected as the two stood at the construction site in hard hats<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Donald<\/p>\n

Donald Trump and Jerome Powell clashed during a tour of Federal Reserve renovations last July. (Reuters: Kent Nishimura)<\/p>\n

Earlier estimates for the project had put the cost at $US1.9 billion ($2.65 billion). The investigation also covered Mr Powell’s brief testimony about the renovation before the Senate Banking Committee last June.<\/p>\n

Writing on X, Ms Pirro said she “will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so”.<\/p>\n

Mr Powell has previously asked the Federal Reserve’s independent inspector-general to investigate the cost overruns.<\/p>\n

‘Essentially zero evidence’ to suspect Powell<\/p>\n

The probe was among several undertaken by the Justice Department into Trump’s perceived adversaries. For months, it had failed to gain traction as prosecutors struggled to articulate a basis to suspect criminal conduct.<\/p>\n

A prosecutor handling the Powell case conceded at a closed-door court hearing in March that the government hadn’t found any evidence of a crime, and a judge subsequently quashed subpoenas issued to the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump lashes Fed chair Jerome Powell over interest rates<\/a><\/p>\n

The president has placed the head of the US central bank in his sights, floating a move that could cause market chaos and undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n

The judge, James Boasberg, said prosecutors had produced “essentially zero evidence” to suspect Mr Powell of a crime, branding prosecutors’ justification for the subpoenas as “thin and unsubstantiated.”<\/p>\n

The investigation appears to have been the most brazen attempt yet by the Trump administration to pressure the central bank to cut its short-term interest rate, which indirectly affects other borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans and business loans.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has obsessively attacked Mr Powell for not cutting the rate from its current level of about 3.6 per cent to 1 per cent, a level that no Federal Reserve official supports.<\/p>\n

Other efforts by the department to prosecute Mr Trump’s adversaries, including New York state Attorney-General Letitia James, a Democrat, and former FBI director James Comey, have also been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

AP\/ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US Justice Department has ended its investigation into Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, clearing a major roadblock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,22615,129642,305220,55312,2490,176,5315,305221,1073,22524,231620,155272],"class_list":{"0":"post-630027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-chair","12":"tag-chairman","13":"tag-chairperson","14":"tag-criminal","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-federal-reserve","17":"tag-investigation","18":"tag-jeanine-pirro","19":"tag-jerome-powell","20":"tag-justice-department","21":"tag-kevin-warsh","22":"tag-probe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}