Prosecutors Turned Away at Fed as Trump Renews Threat to Fire Powell

Federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington made an unannounced visit Tuesday to the Federal Reserve’s headquarters renovation site and were turned away, CBS News and the Associated Press reported. The next day, President Trump said again that he would fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell if Powell stays on the central bank’s board after his term as chair ends.

According to CBS News, two prosecutors and an investigator from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office tried to get into the site and were given contact information for the Fed’s legal team. Robert Hur, the Fed’s outside counsel, wrote to the prosecutors that they had asked for a “tour” to “check on progress,” and that a federal judge had already found their interest in the project “pretextual.” “Should you wish to challenge that finding, the courts provide an avenue for you; it is not appropriate for you to try to circumvent it,” Hur wrote, in a letter both outlets described.

Pirro defended the inquiry in a statement to CBS News. “Any construction project that has cost overruns of almost 80% over the original construction budget deserves some serious review,” she said. The AP reported that the Fed’s current estimate of $2.5 billion is about $600 million above a 2022 estimate of $1.9 billion.

The investigation grew out of Powell’s brief Senate Banking Committee testimony in June 2025 about the renovation. In January, Powell disclosed that the Fed had received grand jury subpoenas and said the probe was an effort to intimidate the central bank, according to CBS News. Last month Chief Judge James Boasberg quashed the subpoenas. “The Government has offered no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the President,” he wrote, as quoted by CBS News and NPR. The AP reported that a top deputy in Pirro’s office conceded in a closed hearing that month that prosecutors had not found evidence of a crime. No charges have been filed.

Mr. Trump, in an interview with Fox Business that aired Wednesday, said of Powell: “Well then I’ll have to fire him, OK?” He said Powell “should be lowering interest rates” and that he would not tell prosecutors to drop the probe. “Don’t you think we have to find out what happened there?” he said, according to NPR. NPR noted it is unclear whether the president has the authority to remove a Fed chair absent serious wrongdoing, and that the Supreme Court is weighing a related case over his attempt to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook.

The dispute is slowing the president’s own choice for the job. Powell’s term as chair expires in mid-May, but he can stay on the board until 2028 and he has said he will not leave while the Justice Department probe is open, the AP and NPR reported. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican on the Banking Committee, has said he will not vote to confirm Kevin Warsh until the probe is resolved, NPR said. The committee is due to hold a hearing on Warsh’s nomination next week. Tillis responded to news of the visit with a social media post that likened the prosecutors to the Three Stooges, the AP reported.