Three prosecutors showed up unannounced at Federal Reserve headquarters Tuesday demanding a tour of the central bank's ongoing renovation project. The surprise visit from U.S. Attorney Jeannine Pirro's office was swiftly rebuffed by the Fed's outside counsel, Robert Hur, who sent an email to Pirro's team noting that a federal judge had already dismantled their investigation.
The attempted inspection came as the criminal probe into Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has collapsed under legal scrutiny. In January, Powell revealed that his office had received subpoenas related to his congressional testimony about the building renovations. By March, however, Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., shut the subpoenas down entirely, concluding that prosecutors had produced "essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime."
Boasberg ruled that the government's interest in the renovation project appeared pretextual. Pirro's office lost a second attempt to revive the subpoenas in early April but has not appealed to a higher court.
In his email Tuesday, Hur reminded Pirro's team of the judge's findings and stated that attempting to circumvent the court order by conducting an informal site inspection was inappropriate. He requested that the office commit to communicating with the Fed only through counsel going forward.
Pirro defended the visit in a statement Tuesday evening, pointing to cost overruns that she said amounted to nearly 80 percent above the original budget. She questioned whether officials overseeing a monetary policy renovation of that scale deserved scrutiny. The statement largely sidestepped the fact that a federal judge had determined no crime existed to investigate.
The timing of the visit created new complications for Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump's nominee to replace Powell as Fed chair. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has blocked Warsh's confirmation advancement from the Senate Banking Committee, insisting the Justice Department must drop the Powell investigation first. The prosecutors' Tuesday visit occurred the same day the Banking Committee announced Warsh's confirmation hearing for the following week.
Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., expressed confidence Tuesday that the DOJ would resolve the matter within weeks. Tillis, meanwhile, remained firm in his position. He told NBC News that he would not reward what he characterized as bad behavior by the Justice Department, which he suggested had initiated the investigation in February to curry favor with the White House. Tillis later posted on social media a photo of the Three Stooges with the caption "The U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C. at the crime scene."
Powell had previously stated in a video message that the investigation was retaliation for the Fed's monetary policy decisions, which prioritized the central bank's assessment of what served the public interest rather than the administration's preferences.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "When federal judges tell you to stop, and you show up anyway with a tour request, you've stopped investigating and started performing. The fact that Pirro can't seem to accept the verdict suggests this probe was never really about the Fed's renovation budgets."
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