District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced that the Department of Justice is ending its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
“This morning the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve has been asked to scrutinize the building costs overruns – in the billions of dollars – that have been borne by taxpayers,” Pirro said. “The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers.”
“I expect a comprehensive report in short order and am confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas. Accordingly, I have directed my office to close our investigation as the IG undertakes this inquiry. Note well, however, that I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.”
Powell has been under investigation since January.
“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.”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) referred Powell to the DOJ for criminal charges last year after making false claims before Congress.
