Judge Tosses Subpoenas Targeting Fed Chair Jerome Powell

Score one for Jerome Powell.

US District Judge James Boasberg has tossed two subpoenas that the Justice Department served on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, ending — for now — its criminal probe into the Fed Chair.

In a ruling unsealed on Friday, Boasberg said the subpoenas were served by the government for an “improper purpose.”

“A mountain of evidence suggests that the government served these subpoenas on the board to pressure its chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,” the judge wrote in the ruling.

“On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime,” Boasberg said, adding, “Indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual.”

The subpoenas sought records about recent renovations of the Fed’s Washington, DC, buildings and Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June about those renovations.

Boasberg opened his 27-page ruling with a July Truth Social from President Donald Trump blasting Powell as “TOO
ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL.”

“That is one of 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,” the judge wrote.

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro blasted the judge and said the Justice Department would appeal the ruling.

As a result of the judge’s order, “Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve,” Pirro told reporters.

Pirro’s statement came after a key Republican lawmaker, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, reiterated his opposition to confirming Kevin Warsh as Powell’s replacement until the criminal investigation ended.

“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,” Tillis wrote on X following Boasberg’s ruling. “Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair.”

In January, Powell confirmed that the central bank received subpoenas in an extraordinary video message that cast the probe as retribution for Powell’s repeated defiance of President Donald Trump’s desires to cut interest rates.

“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public rather than following the preferences of the president,” Powell said in the video.

The criminal investigation was just one way Trump and his allies have tried to pressure the historically independent central bank. Trump tried to fire Fed Gov. Lisa Cook in August 2025, but she has remained at the Fed as the legal fight unfolds. In January, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in that case, where justices expressed skepticism about the White House’s push.

Powell’s term is up in May. Trump announced his nomination of Warsh, a former member of the Federal Reserve, last month and formally submitted it to the Senate weeks ago. Warsh has spent the past week meeting with lawmakers, including Tillis, on Capitol Hill.

Tillis’s opposition is a significant obstacle to Warsh’s confirmation, given that he sits on the Banking Committee, which would vote on Warsh’s nomination before a potential full Senate vote.