The 44 Days That Kept Powell's Job Hostage

Introduction

A federal judge wrote on March 11 that the government had "no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the President." The probe stayed open 44 more days. It closed on April 24, three days after Trump's Fed nominee Kevin Warsh finished his Senate confirmation hearing.

The Senate Banking Committee votes on Warsh Wednesday, April 29, at 10 a.m. ET.

What the court actually said

Judge James Boasberg's 27-page opinion in In re Grand Jury Subpoenas did not just quash the subpoenas served on the Federal Reserve Board on January 10. It found the entire investigation was a pretext. "There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas' dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will."

The most damning passage in the ruling concerns what happened when the judge tried to give the prosecution a way out. At the March 3 hearing, Boasberg invited U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office to submit any additional justification for the subpoenas ex parte, meaning under seal, eyes-only, the kind of submission prosecutors make when they have sensitive but real evidence. Pirro's office declined and didn't submit anything in writing afterward either. In two other concurrent grand jury cases the same office had submitted ex parte evidence. Here, when offered the chance to show a judge anything beyond the public record, in private, they had nothing.

The Trump DOJ kept a criminal investigation against a sitting Fed chair alive for months without evidence the court could find, then closed it on a schedule that tracked Warsh's confirmation calendar. The chairmanship was the leverage to install a loyalist replacement.

How the probe got opened

The court ruling traces the origin precisely. On July 2, 2025, Bill Pulte, the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, posted on X calling for Congress to investigate Powell over "the Board's renovations, and Powell's testimony about them." Pulte's framing wasn't subtle: an investigation, he suggested, would let the President "remove Powell for cause."

Trump reposted Pulte's call the same day, adding "Too Late should resign immediately!!!" Within weeks, the White House Press Secretary announced that "the administration, led by the president, is looking into" the renovations. Then, in the judge's words: "Where Pulte and Trump pointed, the U.S. Attorney's Office followed."

Pirro's office opened the criminal probe in November 2025. Subpoenas hit the Fed on January 10, 2026, the day after Trump, per the court record, "excoriated a gathering of U.S. Attorneys for not moving faster to prosecute his opponents." The judge documented at least 100 statements from Trump or his deputies attacking Powell or pressuring rates, all logged in the case file under ECF No. 14-1.

What the renovation receipts actually show

The pretext was the cost of restoring two historic buildings on the National Mall. The Eccles Building (1935) and the 1951 Constitution Avenue building (1931) had not seen a full renovation since original construction. The board-approved budget is $2.46 billion, up from an initial estimate of roughly $1.9 billion.

The Federal Reserve's official fact sheet lists three documented causes of the overrun: design changes from consultation with federal and state preservation agencies; a gap between original estimates and actual materials and labor costs; and unforeseen conditions including asbestos beyond what surveys predicted, toxic soil contamination, a sinkhole, and a higher-than-expected water table. DC height restrictions force underground construction, and both buildings are on the DC Inventory of Historic Sites.

The Fed's Inspector General audited the renovation in 2021 and again in 2022 and found no evidence of fraud or criminal conduct. Powell himself requested a fresh IG review in summer 2025. The Fed receives no congressional appropriation; the renovation is funded out of its own open-market operations. In 2024, the Board cancelled a separate renovation of the New York Avenue Building over cost concerns.

The thin reed Pirro was working: 2021 planning documents submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission did include the phrases "private dining rooms on Level 4" being "restored" and "the Governors' private elevator will be extended to discharge at the dining suite level." Powell's June 25, 2025 testimony said there were no VIP dining rooms, no special elevators, no roof terrace gardens, no beehives. The Fed's defense was that the 2021 language described preservation of existing features rather than new luxury construction, and that several elements named in 2021 had been cut from later plans. Whether that defense holds up is the kind of question grand jury evidence is meant to resolve, and the prosecution declined to put any forward.

Six Republicans saying it on the record

The strongest signal that the case was empty came from inside Powell's own party. Six Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee, the body that confirms Fed chairs, said publicly they did not believe Powell committed a crime.

Tim Scott, the committee chair, in February: "I found him to be inept at doing his job, but ineptness or being incompetent is not a criminal act." Thom Tillis, the senator whose hold on Warsh was the only thing keeping the nomination from advancing, told Warsh directly at the April 21 confirmation hearing: "Let's get rid of this investigation so I can support your confirmation." John Kennedy: "I will be stunned, I will be shocked if he has done anything wrong." Kevin Cramer: "I do not believe, however, he is a criminal." Dave McCormick said he believed strongly in an independent Federal Reserve and did not think Powell was guilty of criminal activity. Cynthia Lummis told Reuters she "did not see any criminal intent."

Tillis sat across from the nominee in open session and asked the DOJ to drop a probe so he could vote yes on a confirmation he otherwise supported. Three days later, on April 24, the DOJ dropped it.

The 44-day calendar

The Boasberg ruling came down March 11. The DOJ's motion for reconsideration was denied April 3, with the judge writing the government "did not come close" to justifying reversal. As of April 22, Pirro publicly insisted she was "going forward" with the criminal probe and an appeal. Two days later, three days after Warsh's confirmation hearing, she dropped it.

The gap between "no evidence whatsoever" and "case closed" is 44 days, and it maps onto Warsh's confirmation calendar. Trump formally nominated Warsh on January 30. Tillis announced he would block all Fed nominations on January 12, doubling down February 4 with a vow to block Warsh for the entirety of the 119th Congress if the probe continued. The court's "no evidence" finding came down March 11 and the probe didn't close. The Warsh hearing was scheduled for April 21. Three days after the hearing, the probe closed. Two days after that, Tillis dropped his block, telling Meet the Press: "We have assurances from the DOJ that I needed to feel like they were not using the DOJ as a weapon to threaten the independence of the Fed." The Banking Committee scheduled its vote for April 29.

That's the part I keep coming back to. The closure date doesn't track the IG getting jurisdiction or the appeal getting briefed; it tracks three days after a senator publicly asked Pirro to drop it so a vote could happen.

Who Benefits

Trump gets the institution. The Fed is statutorily independent of the White House because monetary policy is a long-horizon decision that cuts against political incentives. Installing a chair whose stated views align with rate cuts gives Trump influence over the lever that drives mortgages, savings rates, the equity market, and inflation. The court ruling cites his December 23, 2025 Truth Social post word for word: "Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!"

Pirro gets access and standing inside the Trump orbit. She had no record as a major-case prosecutor before her appointment. The court ruling notes that a U.S. Attorney in a neighboring district was, in the judge's words, "pushed out for refusing to prosecute the President's opponents." That dynamic produces obvious incentives. Her office tried to indict six Democratic members of Congress, and the grand jury unanimously refused, which legal scholars describe as surpassingly rare. Her indictment of former FBI Director James Comey was dismissed.

Pulte gets the policy. He proposed the legal theory that this investigation could give Trump grounds to "remove Powell for cause," and his housing finance operations directly benefit from lower rates.

Warsh gets a Fed chairmanship. Whether he holds the line on independence after confirmation is an open question. He told the committee on April 21 that Trump never asked him to commit to any rate decision and that he would not be a "sock puppet." The DOJ closed the probe three days later.

The threat that didn't go away

The cleanest tell that the closure was strategic: it didn't fully close the case. Pirro's April 24 X post (quoted in CNBC) said she was directing her office to close the investigation while the IG conducted a review, then added: "I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so." The IG had already been reviewing the renovation since summer 2025 at Powell's own request, meaning the "referral" was to a review already in progress.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, on Meet the Press the same Sunday, declined to rule out restarting the probe. Trump on Saturday, April 25, told reporters the investigation was "not dropped." Senator Elizabeth Warren's official statement flagged the still-live threat against Powell and noted the parallel investigation against Fed Governor Lisa Cook is ongoing.

Closing the probe cleared the confirmation, but holding the door open to restart it puts every sitting governor and the next chair on notice the next time the White House wants something on rates.

What the Banking Committee is actually voting on

A federal court found pretext, the prosecutor declined to put any evidence in front of that court even under seal, and six Republican senators on the Banking Committee said publicly the underlying allegation wasn't a crime. The probe's open and close dates bracket the confirmation calendar exactly. All of that is in the docket or on the record.

On Wednesday morning, three things happen on the same schedule: the Fed announces its April rate decision, Powell holds his last press conference as Fed Chair, and the Banking Committee votes Warsh out of committee. Watching all of it at once, the question worth tracking is whether the playbook clears its first test: open a criminal investigation against a sitting independent regulator, push it past a federal court that calls it pretextual, time the closure to a confirmation, and keep the threat alive against whoever sits in the chair after. Watch which senators name that playbook before they vote. The ones who don't will tell you the rest.

Metadata

• Status: revised
• Content Pillar: The Public Record
• Subject Line: The 44 Days That Kept Powell's Job Hostage
• Preview Text: A federal court found no evidence. The probe stayed open until the nominee finished his hearing.