Boasberg blocks subpoenas against Fed Chair Jerome Powell

A federal judge blocked the Justice Department's efforts to issue a pair of grand jury subpoenas to the Federal Reserve Board, concluding that the effort was merely a "pretext" to pressure Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell into lowering interest rates or resigning.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in the newly unsealed ruling that the Justice Department offered "no evidence whatsoever" that Powell committed any crime "other than displeasing" President Donald Trump.

"Did prosecutors issue those subpoenas for a proper purpose? The Court finds that they did not," he said, adding: "There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will."

The ruling comes after U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro opened a criminal inquiry into Powell's June 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, centered on the Fed's years-long renovation of its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Powell revealed the investigation publicly in January, which he described as an attack on the Fed's independence. 

Pirro said Friday that the Justice Department would appeal the ruling to a higher court.

"This process has been arbitrarily undermined by an activist judge," she said at a press conference Friday, arguing that Boasberg "put himself at the entrance door to the grand jury, slamming that door shut — irrespective of the legal process — and thus preventing the grand jury from doing the work that it does."

Any appeal could prolong Trump's efforts to remove Powell from the Fed and replace him with his pick — former Fed Gov Kevin Warsh — as Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. remarked on social media Friday.

The ruling "confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence," Tillis said.

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"We all know how this is going to end and the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on," he said. "Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair."

Boasberg used the ruling to tick through many of Trump's social media posts blasting Powell and unsuccessfully pressuring him to lower interest rates, before suggesting that someone else should replace him to head up the Fed.

"Jerome 'Too Late' Powell has done it again!!! He is TOO LATE, and actually, TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL, to have the job of Fed Chair," Boasberg said in one citation — noting that it was among "at least 100 statements that the President or his deputies have made attacking the Chair of the Federal Reserve and pressuring him to lower interest rates."

"Being perceived as the President’s adversary has become risky in recent years," Boasberg said.

"In his second term, Trump has urged the Department of Justice to prosecute such people, and the Department’s prosecutors have listened."

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