US Fed Chair Jerome Powell below legal investigation | EUROtoday

Federal prosecutors have opened a legal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, he stated on Sunday.

In a video saying the probe, Powell stated the US justice division served the company with subpoenas and threatened a legal indictment over testimony he gave to a Senate committee about renovations to Federal Reserve buildings.

He known as the probe “unprecedented” and stated he believed it was opened resulting from him drawing Donald Trump’s ire over refusing to decrease rates of interest regardless of repeated public stress from the president.

The Fed chair is the most recent to return at odds with Trump after which face legal investigation by the US justice division.

The justice division and White House has not but commented on the obvious investigation.

“This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” Powell stated.

“I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one, certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve is above the law, but this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure,” he went on to say.

The probe, which prosecutors haven’t confirmed, would sign a recent escalation in Trump’s ongoing dispute with Powell, who the president nominated for the function as Fed chair in 2017.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to take away Powell, who he has criticised for not reducing rates of interest as rapidly because the president would have favored. In the second half of 2025, the Fed reduce rates of interest 3 times.

The president has constantly blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, and the central financial institution rates of interest for financial struggles within the US.

Critics have raised considerations that Trump’s stress to oust the Fed chair would muddy the establishment’s authority to set rates of interest independently from presidents.

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who’s a member of the Senate Banking Committee, stated he would oppose the nomination of Powell’s alternative by Trump, and another Fed Board nominee, “until this legal matter is fully resolved”.

“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 stated in an announcement.

“It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question,” the senator stated.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, stated she believed Trump’s plan was to push Powell off the Fed board for good and “install another sock puppet to complete his corrupt takeover of America’s central bank”.

“This committee and the Senate should not move forward with any Trump nominee for the Fed, including Fed Chair,” she stated.

Powell’s investigation shall be overseen by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, in keeping with the New York Times, which first reported the probe.

Trump beforehand took purpose at Lisa Cook, a governor on the US central financial institution, whom he tried to fireside over alleged mortgage fraud.

The case was blocked by a US federal courtroom and shall be heard by the Supreme Court later this month.