U.S. attorney and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in the White House Oval office on May 28, 2025 (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian/Flickr)
Jerome Powell's relationship with the U.S. Federal Reserve goes back to the Obama Administration. After serving in the U.S. Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s, Powell, a Republican, was appointed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2012 by then-President Barack Obama. Then, in 2018, President Donald Trump appointed Powell Fed chairman — a position he continued to hold throughout Joe Biden's presidency.
But Trump is now furious with the 73-year-old Powell for not lowering interest rates as much as he would like. While Trump favors dramatic interest rate cuts, Powell has favored lowering them gradually. And major economists like Paul Krugman are in agreement with Powell, stressing that for the Fed, interest rate cuts are a tool to be saved for major economic downturns.
Trump is calling for Powell, whose term as Fed chair ends on May 15, to be fired. And the Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has been investigating claims that Powell lied to Congress — claims that Trump's critics are describing as baseless.
In a biting article published by the National Review on April 16, conservative journalist Andrew C. McCarthy attacks the Trump DOJ's Powell probe as petty and devoid of merit.
"The Trump Administration's self-destructive investigation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has achieved a new level of farce," McCarthy argues. "On Tuesday, (April 14), the Justice Department sent a pair of prosecutors and a federal investigator to the construction site of the Fed's renovation project, apparently seeking a tour and to interview construction workers."
McCarthy adds, "The Fed is an independent agency; the Trump Administration concedes this point. Even as it seeks to nullify the independence of other administrative agencies, the Trump DOJ has told the Supreme Court that it accepts the Fed's independence from executive control."
Former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, now a federal prosecutor for DOJ in Washington, D.C., is heading the investigation of Powell.
"She is investigating whether Powell gave misleading testimony to Congress regarding alleged cost overruns in the lavish renovation project," McCarthy observes. "Pirro bristles at the suggestion that the investigation is motivated by the president's political vendetta against Powell, whom he has pressured non-stop with juvenile taunts over interest rates and the president's desire to replace Powell not only as chairman, but as a Fed Board member…. Pirro reacted with indignation when asked about sending investigators to the Fed…. Congress should be scrutinizing the Trump DOJ's lawfare practices. Republicans appear to be too cowed to do so, but this will come back to bite them, just as it will bite Trump."
