{"id":585346,"date":"2026-04-15T08:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T08:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/585346\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T08:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T08:37:13","slug":"pirro-aides-try-to-tour-the-feds-renovations-as-probe-stalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/585346\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirro aides try to ‘tour’ the Fed’s renovations as probe stalls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prosecutors working for Jeannine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., made an unannounced visit to the headquarters of the Federal Reserve on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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Three officials from Pirro\u2019s office arrived at the Fed’s headquarters construction site in downtown Washington and said they wanted a \u201ctour,” Robert Hur, the central bank’s outside counsel, told Pirro\u2019s office in an email, which was seen by NBC News. <\/p>\n

Pirro\u2019s deputies also said they wanted to \u201ccheck on progress\u201d in the yearslong renovation of the Fed’s historic buildings overlooking the National Mall, Hur said. <\/p>\n

Hur indicated in his email Tuesday that investigators were turned away from the site. The attempted visit was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.<\/a><\/p>\n

The surprise move by Pirro’s office came as its investigation into Fed Chairman Jerome Powell\u2019s congressional testimony last year about the Fed’s renovation project has been rapidly losing steam. <\/p>\n

The probe first broke into public view in January, when Powell announced<\/a> that subpoenas had been served to the central bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Powell said in a video statement Sunday night.<\/p>\n

On March 13<\/a>, Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., agreed with Powell. <\/p>\n

In a ruling, Boasberg blocked the subpoenas that Pirro\u2019s office had served on the Fed, saying that \u201cthe Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Hur pointed to Boasberg’s ruling in his email.<\/p>\n

“As you know, Chief Judge Boasberg has concluded that your interest in the Federal Reserve\u2019s renovation project was pretextual,” he wrote. <\/p>\n

“Should you wish to challenge that finding, the courts provide an avenue for you; it is not appropriate for you to try to circumvent it.” <\/p>\n

Pirro lost a second attempt to revive the quashed subpoenas on April 3. Her office could appeal to a higher court, but it has not yet done so. <\/p>\n

Hur concluded, “I ask that you commit not to seek to communicate with my client outside the presence of counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pirro suggested in a statement Tuesday night that the investigators were justified in having tried to inspect the renovation project despite the judge’s ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny construction project that has cost overruns of almost 80% over the original construction budget deserves some serious review,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd these people are in charge of monetary policy in the United States?\u201d<\/p>\n

But the more immediate effect of Tuesday’s visit will be to further complicate the Senate confirmation process for Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump\u2019s nominee to succeed Powell.<\/p>\n

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., says he will not vote to advance Warsh’s nomination from the Senate Banking Committee until the Justice Department drops its probe of Powell and the renovations.<\/p>\n

\"TrumpPresident Donald Trump, center, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, right, during a tour of construction on the Eccles Building on July 24.Alex Wroblewski \/ Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But in a coincidence that has already raised some eyebrows in Washington, Pirro’s team visited the same day the Banking Committee announced the date of Warsh’s confirmation hearing, next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Also Tuesday, the committee’s chair, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said he was \u201cvery confident that the DOJ will wrap this up very soon.”<\/p>\n

“All evidence I’ve seen, all fingers point in the direction of having this wrapped up in the next few weeks,” Scott said on Fox Business Network.<\/p>\n

Yet as of Tuesday night, Warsh’s confirmation vote was still blocked.<\/p>\n

“Kevin’s a perfect candidate, and that’s why it’s so frustrating that somebody in DOJ in February decided that they were going to maybe garner favor from somebody in the White House by trying to invoke a criminal investigation against Jerome Powell,” Tillis told NBC News in an interview, also on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to reward bad behavior,” Tillis added. “Recognize there’s not sufficient evidence to continue a criminal investigation, end it, and I will vote for Kevin Warsh.”<\/p>\n

Late Tuesday, Tillis posted a photo on social media of the Three Stooges with the caption<\/a> “The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for D.C. at the crime scene.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prosecutors working for Jeannine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., made an unannounced visit to the headquarters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-585346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}