A US Federal judge has blocked subpoenas sent to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell by the Trump administration, per NBC News. According to the Fed Chair, the subpoenas were related to his testimony before the Senate in June about the renovation of Federal Reserve office buildings.
A federal judge on Friday said he was blocking subpoenas that the Justice Department served to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in a probe purported to be about the management of the central bank’s renovation. “A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,” Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge on the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., wrote in a court filing.
The Judge continued: “On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual.” “The Court therefore finds that the subpoenas were issued for an improper purpose and will quash them,” Boasberg’s order adds.
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The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, said in a press conference on Friday that the judge’s order wrongly exonerated Powell and others.“No one is above the law, but for the first time, a judge’s ruling that a grand jury subpoena — on its face legal in all regards — can be ignored, because the judge thinks the subject is beyond reproach. This is a decision that is untethered to the law,” she said.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has faced plenty of pressure in the final months of his tenure, which is set to expire in May. He and Trump have been at odds over the Fed’s spending and reluctance to lower interest rates. This decision to block the subpoena’s, however, are a big loss to the US President and his administration.