Donald Trump has been on a misguided mission to strip the Federal Reserve of its independence so he can lower interest rates at will, even though he doesn’t understand that doing so in the current economy will increase inflation and raise prices.
Trump has been threatening and insulting Jerome Powell since he returned to office, but his smear campaign failed, so the president is using his DOJ to investigate Powell in the hope of getting him to resign.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
U.S. prosecutors are investigating Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over his testimony last summer about the central bank’s building-renovation project, according to government officials with knowledge of the matter.
The Fed received grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department on Friday that threaten a criminal indictment, the Fed chair said in a statement.
Powell responded in a video statement where he said in part, “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 previous years, this might have been where it stopped. However, Republicans are increasingly treating Trump like a lame duck and defying him.
The defiance is coming from the Senate and could halt Trump for the rest of the year.
Read more below.
