Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says he will not step down from the central bank’s board until the investigation launched by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department into Powell’s congressional testimony last year is completely stopped.
“I have no intention of leaving the board until the investigation is done well and with transparency and finality,” Powell said Wednesday at a press conference in Washington, DC.
Trump’s nominee for president, economist Kevin Warsh, left the door open for the Senate to confirm Powell to remain on the board even if the investigation ends.
“As for whether I will serve as governor after my term is over and the investigation is over, I haven’t made that decision yet,” Powell told reporters at Fed headquarters. “I make that decision based on what I think is best for the organization and the people we serve.”
Powell’s announcement underscores the failure of a year-long campaign led by Trump and his allies to oust Powell from the Federal Reserve and replace him with someone more closely allied with the president.
Powell’s term as chairman of the central bank ends in May. But his term as a powerful governor on the Fed board with a vote on interest rates does not end until 2028.
Powell said he would remain in place as the Fed’s chairman pro tempore unless Warsh is confirmed by the end of his term as chairman in May.
As of Wednesday, Warsh’s Senate confirmation process had not progressed beyond the meet-and-greet stage.
Trump’s Justice Department subpoenaed Powell and the Fed at the central bank’s Washington DC headquarters in January with questions about the renewal plan. Powell said the federal investigation was nothing more than a “intimidation” tactic in Trump’s long-running pressure campaign to force Powell to support interest rate cuts.
The administration seized on the renewal plan and its apparent cost was evidence of what he said was Powell’s abuse of the Fed more broadly.
On Capitol Hill, North Carolina’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis has bucked his party and repeatedly described the Trump-approved DOJ investigation as “bogus.”
Tillis is currently using her seat on the powerful Senate Banking Committee to hold up Warsh’s confirmation process.
On Friday, a federal judge blocked the subpoenas, saying the feds were issued with “essentially zero evidence” to back them up.
After the judge’s ruling, Tillis said it “confirms how weak and futile the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is, and that it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence.”
Tillis urged the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, not to appeal the verdict and to drop the investigation.
But Pirro refused and gave a fiery press conference after the ruling, which his office immediately appealed.
For more than a year now, Trump and his top allies have pressured Powell and other members of the central bank to cut interest rates more often. They have deployed a combination of social media bullying, criticism on cable news and false accusations, but they have little to show for their efforts.
On Wednesday, the Fed’s Open Market Committee voted 11-1 to keep interest rates steady. The only dissenting vote in favor of rate cuts was Trump’s nominee and former White House official, Stephen Miron.
