The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (USAO-DC) has opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
“On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June,” Powell said in a January 11 statement. “That testimony concerned in part a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.”
Powell said the threat of the investigation “is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings” and is “not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project,” which he called “pretexts.”
“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President,” he declared. “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.”
In July 2025, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) referred Powell to the DOJ for criminal charges. “These are not minor misstatements,” the congresswoman said in a statement at the time. “Chairman Powell knowingly misled both Congress and executive branch officials about the true nature of a taxpayer-funded project. Lying under oath is a serious offense— especially from someone tasked with overseeing our monetary system and public trust.”
Luna’s letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi explains that on June 25, Powell “provided testimony under oath before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs regarding the renovation of the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building. In his statements, he made several materially false claims,” including those surrounding project plans and renovations to the Eccles building.
