{"id":129729,"date":"2026-01-12T01:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/129729\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T01:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:39:07","slug":"federal-reserve-chair-powell-says-doj-has-subpoenaed-central-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/129729\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Reserve Chair Powell says DOJ has subpoenaed central bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Federal Reserve Chair\u00a0Jerome Powell<\/a>\u00a0said Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed\u2019s building renovations.<\/p>\n

The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump\u2019s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as quickly as Trump prefers. The subpoena relates to his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, Powell said, regarding the Fed\u2019s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that\u00a0Trump criticized as excessive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump\u2019s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple \u201cpretexts\u201d to undermine the\u00a0Fed\u2019s independence<\/a>\u00a0when it comes to setting interest rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions \u2014 or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sharp departure from the Fed\u2019s understated response to Trump this year. The central bank has attempted to placate the administration by dialing back some policies, such as efforts to consider the impact of climate change on the banking system, that the administration clearly opposed.<\/p>\n

In his testimony in June, Powell disputed some of the criticisms that had been levied against the Fed\u2019s renovation of two historic office buildings, which have ballooned in cost.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department in a statement Sunday said it can\u2019t comment on any particular case, but added that Attorney General Pam Bondi \u201chas instructed her US Attorneys to prioritize investigating any abuse of tax payer dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro\u2019s office didn\u2019t immediately respond Sunday to a text message and phone call seeking comment.<\/p>\n

With the subpoenas, Powell becomes the latest perceived adversary of the president to face a criminal investigation by the Trump administration\u2019s Justice Department. Trump himself has urged prosecutions of his political opponents, obliterating institutional guardrails for a Justice Department that for generations has taken care to make investigative and prosecutorial decisions independent of the White House.<\/p>\n

The potential indictment has already drawn concern from one Republican senator, who said he\u2019ll oppose any future nominee to the central bank, including any replacement for Powell, until \u201cthis legal matter is fully resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf 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,\u201d said North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who sits on the Banking Committee, which oversees Fed nominations. \u201cIt is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Eric Tucker, Michael Kunzelman, and Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Federal Reserve Chair\u00a0Jerome Powell\u00a0said Sunday the Department of Justice has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[28375,66779,74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-129729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-federal-reserve","9":"tag-federal-reserve-subpoena","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}