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The Justice Department quietly opened a criminal inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in mid-January 2026, alleging potential false or misleading testimony about a multibillion-dollar renovation of Fed buildings. This sudden escalation has rocked Washington and put the independence of our central bank at the center of a political storm.
According to reporting, the probe centers on Powell’s Senate testimony about cost overruns and the scope of the National Mall renovation, and prosecutors have issued subpoenas as part of their grand jury review. Whether this is legitimate oversight or a politicized fishing expedition depends on how the DOJ proceeds, but the facts show the investigation is real and already drawing heavy scrutiny.
Powell himself blasted the move as politically motivated, warning that it threatens the Fed’s ability to set monetary policy free from intimidation, while markets reacted nervously: the dollar weakened and gold spiked as investors sensed greater uncertainty. When you see gold shooting higher and the greenback wobbling, hardworking Americans should be asking who benefits from this chaos and whether institutions are being weaponized for political ends.
Conservative voices in the press, including Steve Forbes, have called the DOJ’s maneuver a blunder that will likely cast Powell in the role of media martyr even as his stewardship of monetary policy has worsened things for everyday Americans. There is truth on both counts: the DOJ risks looking partisan, and Powell has earned criticism for a Fed philosophy that tilts against prosperity and tolerates monetary conditions that shrink the dollar’s purchasing power.
No patriotic American wants law enforcement used as a cudgel to settle policy disputes, yet we also cannot let the Fed’s leadership dodge accountability for grand misjudgments. Powell’s record—years of policies that too often smother growth while chasing a narrow academic view of inflation—deserves hard questions, not a theater of partisan prosecutions or fawning media cover-ups.
Republican lawmakers are already responding forcefully, with calls to pause confirmations until this matter is resolved and warnings that the integrity of both the Fed and DOJ are at stake. It is right for elected officials to insist on transparency and to protect the system from both corrupt prosecutors and unaccountable technocrats.
What Americans deserve is simple: a fair, above-board investigation that follows evidence rather than political agendas, and a Federal Reserve that prioritizes the stability and purchasing power of the dollar over intellectual fashion. If the DOJ has real evidence of criminal conduct, bring it forward; if not, drop this gambit and stop turning our institutions into stage props in an all-too-predictable Washington power play.
