A federal judge on Friday said he was blocking subpoenas that the Justice Department served to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in a probe purported to be about the management of the central bank's renovation.
"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," Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge on the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., wrote in a court filing.
Boasberg continued: "On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual."
"The Court therefore finds that the subpoenas were issued for an improper purpose and will quash them," the order states.
Powell said the threhttps://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/powell-subpoenas-blocked-trump-probe-rcna263401atened indictment was related to his testimony before the Senate in June about the renovation of Federal Reserve office buildings.
"No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law," Powell said in an unprecedented Sunday night video statement on Jan. 11. "But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure."
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