The bombshell revelations from Sunday that Donald Trump's Department of Justice is criminally probing the Federal Reserve have prompted heated pushback from the president's allies in the GOP-controlled Congress, according to Politico, with one House member warning that the move "will haunt us all for a generation."
Trump spent much of his first year back in the White House pressing Jerome Powell, the man he appointed as chair of the Federal Reserve back in 2018, to lower interest rates. As Powell resisted, Trump escalated to threats, looking for grounds on which to fire the Fed chair. Trump's campaign against Powell alarmed many observers concerned about the independence of the Fed and its ability to keep the US economy stable.
On Sunday, news emerged that Trump's DOJ was moving forward with a criminal investigation into Powell over allegations that he misled Congress over the scope of a renovation to the Fed's D.C. office. The president is barred by law from removing the Fed chair for any reason, and can only do so in response to misconduct. In a rare public statement, Powell himself called the probe an effort by Trump to reshape the nature of the Fed and create a dynamic whereby the country's monetary policy is "directed by political pressure or intimidation."
Speaking to Politico, one anonymous senior House GOP member expressed considerable frustration over the probe, lashing out at the Trump administration's insistence on having everything "their way" and warning of the lasting repercussions it could cause.
“Will they stop at nothing to force their way on everything?” the anonymous lawmaker told Politico's Meredith Lee Hill. “The administration is setting a standard they cannot achieve themselves and will haunt us all for a generation.”
This comment added to the flames of conservative revolt against Trump's feud with Powell, coming on the heels of Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and member of the Senate Banking Committee, threatening to withhold his support for Trump's pick to replace Powell over this probe. As Politico explained, if every Democrat on the committee voted against the nominee, Tillis' opposition would be enough to stall the process of appointing a new Fed chair.
“If 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,” Tillis said. “It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Alaska Republican, took to social media on Monday to decry the probe as "an attempt at coercion."
"After speaking with Chair Powell this morning, it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion," Murkowski said in a post to X. "If the Department of Justice believes an investigation into Chair Powell is warranted based on project cost overruns,— which are not."
Notably, Powell's term as Fed chair is up in the spring, meaning Trump only needs to wait a few months to be able to replace him lawfully.