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Banana Republic Tactics
In what looked like a hostage video, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell announced Sunday evening that he is the target of a retaliatory criminal investigation by the Trump administration that resulted in subpoenas Friday to the Federal Reserve itself.
What made Powell’s announcement reminiscent of a hostage video wasn’t the quality of the recording or the failure of Powell to be a stalwart against Trump’s repeated attempts to bring the Fed under his thumb but the fact that Powell was put in the position at all: a central banker facing banana republic tactics and forced to make a direct appeal to the public (read: financial markets).
Powell, originally appointed as Fed chair by Trump, was unabashed in saying that the criminal investigation into his testimony to Congress about renovations to the Feds’ D.C. headquarters is pre-textual, a poorly veiled attempt to muscle the independent Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates in the short term, as Trump wants, and subordinating monetary policy to the political exigencies of the sitting president in the long term.
“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,” Powell said.
By going public, Powell put financial markets and central bankers around world on notice about Trump’s most extreme move yet to undermine Fed independence.
The criminal investigation and the subpoenas it yielded were just the latest step in Trump’s year-long effort to bring the Fed to heel. He already attempted to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on bogus claims of mortgage fraud. That case — which tests whether the Fed will remain truly independent — is pending before the Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments next week. More broadly, the Federal Reserve is at risk from Trump’s wide-ranging attack on independent agencies, though the Roberts Court has already indicated that may be a bridge too far even for justices enthusiastic to extend their ahistorical unitary executive theory.
While Powell is the proximate target of this retaliatory criminal investigation, he may not be the ultimate target. Powell’s term as Federal Reserve chairman ends in May, and Trump says he’s already decided on a successor for Powell, though he hasn’t divulged yet whom it will be. As the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip notes, the subpoenas are a message to new incoming chair and the other fed governors (Powell’s term as a governor doesn’t end until 2028) that the president has them on a short leash.
Among the details:
- Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte was a “driving force” behind the subpoena, Bloomberg reports. For his part, Pulte said, “I don’t know anything about it, and I would defer (sic) you to the DOJ.”
- “I don’t know anything about it,” Trump told NBC News, using an oft-repeated phrasing that has sometimes proven in the past to be patently false.
- D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro “approved” on the investigation in November, the NYT reports, and prosecutors in her office have made “multiple” document requests of Powell’s staff regarding the renovation project.
- “I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved,” Sen. Thom Tillis said on X.
Headline Whiff of the Day
If your headline on the bogus pre-textual “investigation” of the Federal Reserve is indistinguishable from what you would have used for a good old-fashioned political scandal, then you are 100% doing it wrong:
- WSJ: U.S. Prosecutors Are Investigating Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
- WaPo: Justice Department opens a criminal investigation of Fed chair
- NYT: Federal Prosecutors Open Investigation Into Fed Chair Powell
- CNN: Federal prosecutors open criminal investigation into the Fed and Jerome Powell
Chart of the Day
Quote of the Day
“The total capture of the DOJ, seemingly with very little pushback or resistance, is one of the most striking examples of the capitulation of American elites in the face of authoritarianism. It’s been less than a year, and federal prosecutions or investigations are already completely discredited.”–Filipe Campante, professor at Johns Hopkins University
DOJ Watch
- Christopher G. Raia, the head of the FBI’s NYC office, is expected to become deputy FBI director, a return to having a career agent in that role following the departure of Dan Bongino.
- Former Special Counsel Jack Smith has launched a new law firm with Tim Heaphy, the lead investigator on the House’s select Jan. 6 committee; Thomas Windom, a former member of Smith’s team investigating the Jan. 6 case; and David Harbach, who worked the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
Trump Still Living in the Big Lie
President Trump told the NYT last week that he regretted not having the National Guard seize voting machines in swing states after the 2020 election.
Midterms Rat-fucking Watch
- In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge John Chun of Seattle blocked the Trump administration from threatening to withhold federal election funding for states that refuse to alter their voter registration forms or voting systems to comply with a Trump executive order.
- The WaPo has a rundown of the many unprecedented ways Trump is trying to manipulate the outcome of the 2026 midterms:
The administration has gutted the role of the nation’s cybersecurity agency in protecting elections; stocked the Justice Department, Homeland Security Department and FBI from top to bottom with officials who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election; given a White House audience to people who, like the president, promote the lie that he won the 2020 election; sued over state and local election policies that Trump opposes; and called for a new census that excludes noncitizens. The wide-ranging efforts seek to expand on some of the strategies he and his advisers and allies used to try to reverse the 2020 results that culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
2026 Ephemera
Former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) will challenge incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), a big candidate recruitment win for Democrats trying to improve their long-shot chances of winning the Senate this year. Peltola lost her 2024 re-election bid to Republican Nick Begich III.
Racism Remains Trump’s Rosetta Stone
In a NYT interview, Trump said the civil rights movement resulted in white people being “very badly treated.”
Sign of the Times
A suspect has been arrested in an arson attack on a Jackson, Mississippi synagogue.
Mass Deportation Watch
- After being shut out of the federal investigation, Minnesota has launched its own probe of last week’s fatal ICE shooting.
- On Thursday, the day after the Minneapolis shooting, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem reinstated limits preventing lawmakers from making unannounced visits to immigration facilities. On Saturday, officials used the new guidance to block Minnesota Democratic Reps. Angie Craig, Ilhan Omar, and Kelly Morrison from accessing a detention facility in Minneapolis.
- Since July, ICE has fired into or at vehicles 13 times leaving at least eight people shot with two confirmed dead, the WSJ reports.
Today in Population Trends
The U.S. population is projected to peak at 364 million people in 2056 and then begin to decline, according to a new Congressional Budget Office estimate that reduces the population peak from prior estimates and speeds up the date when the U.S. population begins to decline.
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