U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro excoriated a federal judge for blocking subpoenas served by the Justice Department against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
James Boasberg, U.S. District Court chief judge for Washington, D.C., ruled Friday that the Dept. of Justice had no legal basis to issue the subpoenas in the investigation into renovation of the aged offices of the Federal Reserve.
‘Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve.’
President Donald Trump has accused Powell of mismanaging the renovation and tried unsuccessfully to pressure Powell to step down from his office. Boasberg, who has been accused of bias by the Trump administration, accused the president of seeking the investigation in order to force Powell out.
“A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,” the judge said in his ruling.
Pirro vehemently criticized the judgment in comments to the media.
“The American public is fed up with public moneys that seem to go into a black hole, especially in D.C. where no one is held accountable,” Pirro said.
“One of the age-old tools that all prosecutors have to investigate any crime, including cost overruns, is a grand jury subpoena. Today, however, in Washington, an activist judge has taken that tool away from us,” she added.
“As a result, Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve. This is wrong, and it is without legal authority,” she continued.
She indicated that the Justice Dept. intended to appeal the order from Boasberg.
The judge added that Pirro did not provide enough evidence for the accusation in his opinion.
“On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual,” Boasberg wrote.
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Powell also accused the administration of seeking the investigation to influence him.
“No one — certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve — is above the law,” Powell said in January. “But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.”
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