Trump's Revenge Tour Hits another Wall

The DOJ just dropped its bogus investigation into Jerome Powell — but don't think for a second this was about justice

The Justice Department dropped its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell today, and somewhere in Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump — the village idiot — is absolutely seething.

Let’s be honest about what this investigation always was: a revenge operation. Trump has been furious at Powell for years. Because Powell refused to take orders from him. The Fed Chair wouldn’t simply lower interest rates on command, the way a loyal foot soldier would. Trump labeled him disloyal and decided the appropriate punishment was prison. That’s the mentality running the executive branch right now.

So in January, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro — doing the administration’s dirty work — hit the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas over a building renovation project. The Fed’s headquarters, which hadn’t been seriously renovated since the 1930s, needed a $2.5 billion overhaul. Water was pouring into the basement. There was unexpected asbestos. Soil contamination. A sinkhole. Normal stuff when you’re renovating a nearly century-old building. But Trump smelled blood, invented a false narrative and went after Powell with everything he had. He even floated the idea that Powell was personally profiting from the renovations.

Here's what makes this entire spectacle even more absurd: a federal judge had already thrown out key subpoenas for lack of evidence. In court, the government couldn’t point to an actual crime. Meanwhile, the Fed’s Inspector General had already reviewed the renovation and found no clear misconduct. Yet Pirro kept pushing forward anyway.— because when you’re working for Trump, facts are always optional, frequently inconvenient.

Today, Pirro announced she’s closing the investigation and handing things off to the Federal Reserve’s own Inspector General. She wrapped it in tough language, warning she’d “not hesitate to restart” if the facts warranted. Sure, Jeanine. The whole thing reads like a face-saving maneuver. The real reason this probe is dead? Senator Thom Tillis — a Republican, mind you — had been blocking confirmation of Trump’s Fed nominee Kevin Warsh until this so-called investigation was dropped. Trump needed Warsh confirmed more than he needed Powell in handcuffs.

And that brings us to Warsh. Senator Elizabeth Warren has been sounding the alarm about him for a while now, calling him Trump’s sock puppet at the Federal Reserve — not because of today’s news, but because she believes Warsh will simply hand Trump and his allies another lever to enrich themselves at taxpayer expense. Today’s developments only add fuel to that concern.

The independence of the Federal Reserve exists for a reason. It’s one of the few institutions designed to operate free from political pressure. Trump spent months trying to dismantle that independence through intimidation, sham investigations, and media attacks. He failed. Powell leaves in May on his own terms. The record is clear: there was never a crime here. Just a president who uses the taxpayer funded Department of Justice with his own personal law firm.