DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro ripped a federal judge for blocking grand jury subpoenas related to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s management of renovations at the central bank. The judge had no authority to make the call.  

     The “outrageous” ruling by “activist judge” James Boasberg ran afoul of legal precedent and has left Powell “bathed in immunity,” Pirro charged in blistering remarks after the chief judge of the US District Court for the nation’s capital quashed the subpoenas. Boasberg, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, determined that a “mountain of evidence” ‌suggested ⁠the Justice Department’s probe into Powell was to pressure the Fed chairman to cut interest rates or resign.

     “There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will,” Boasberg wrote in a 27-page opinion. “The Government has offered no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the President.” The investigation into Powell centered on alleged false statements he made to the Senate Banking Committee in June 2025 about the $2.5 billion renovation of the Federal Reserve’s Washington, DC, headquarters, Pirro insisted. 

     Pirro then accused Powell of calling up “his political friends in DC and around the world to gin up support for himself, all the while refusing to produce simple documents.” Boasberg’s ruling “makes clear his antipathy toward President Trump,” the prosecutor seethed. “One of the age-old tools that all prosecutors have to investigate any crime, including cost overruns, is a grand jury subpoena,” Pirro said. “Today, however, in Washington, an activist judge has taken that tool away from us by inserting himself and preventing the grand jury from even obtaining, let alone hearing, evidence. “He has neutered the grand jury’s ability to investigate crime. As a result, Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve. This is wrong. And it is without legal authority.”