Trump Administration vs. Independent Institutions

The Justice Department has served grand‑jury subpoenas to the Federal Reserve seeking records tied to Chair Jerome Powell’s June testimony about cost overruns on the Fed’s Washington headquarters—now put at roughly $2.5 billion—and Powell called the criminal inquiry an “unprecedented” intimidation he says is a pretext to punish the Fed for resisting White House pressure on interest‑rate cuts, a charge the White House denies. In a rare international rebuke, top central banks including the ECB and Bank of England issued a joint statement of “full solidarity” defending central‑bank independence, while former Fed chairs, ex‑Treasury officials and bipartisan lawmakers condemned the probe and reports point to FHFA Director Bill Pulte and other Trump allies as driving the campaign even as some administration figures urged de‑escalation.