Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York said the people “need to know what is the alleged wrongdoing” of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Powell confirmed in a video message posted over the weekend that he is the subject of Department of Justice investigation. York appeared on Fox News’s the Ingraham Angle Monday, describing the video as “weird” and noting that little is known about the investigation.
“The problem is, we don’t know the facts of the case. We do know the Fed building renovation is hugely over budget, which is not super unique in Washington, but beyond that we just don’t know anything,” York said. “We do know it was really weird, for the head of the Federal Reserve to release a video on Sunday night. The president himself has said he didn’t know anything about it.”
“Before anybody can really say anything definitively, we need to know what is the alleged wrongdoing here,” York added.
York was referring to President Donald Trump’s claims about the cost of renovating the Federal Reserve’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Trump has said the renovations cost about $3.1 billion. Powell denied that figure, saying Trump “added in a third building” to inflate the estimate.
In his video message, Powell said, “This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings.” The Fed is an agency that is much younger than the United States’s Constitution, leaving little precedent for how the president can deal with it.
“Obviously, the Founders didn’t create a Federal Reserve. And this is solely a much, much later creation,” York said. “It has enormous power, but the president has really tried hard to let them know what he thinks about Jerome Powell’s job. He doesn’t like it. The president has had a tough time having his way with the Fed.”
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Former President Barack Obama nominated Powell to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2012. Trump elevated Powell to chairman in 2018, and then-President Joe Biden reappointed him in 2022.
Trump publicly contemplated firing Powell but has kept him in the position. Trump has also hinted at making Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the new chairman.