Former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and officials did not break criminal laws during the handling of the central bank’s renovation project, according to a report by the Fed’s internal watchdog. The office of Fed Inspector General Michael Horowitz noted that the bank did not effectively execute the construction management risk contract for renovations of its two Washington buildings.
Horowitz began investigating Powell’s management of the project in April, following a recommendation by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro. Pirro conducted her own three-month probe into Powell. When the investigation commenced, Powell stated that it was an attempt to pressure the Fed into lowering interest rates, responding to repeated calls from President Trump to do so.
Powell asserted at the investigation’s start, “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.” The Justice Department focused on his Senate Banking Committee testimony in June 2025, where he justified the project’s rising expenses to panel Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.).
“There’s no VIP dining room. There’s no new marble. We took down the old marble, we’re putting it back up. We’ll have to use new marble where some of the old marble broke,” Powell explained to the committee.
In other news, an appeals court agreed with a previous ruling that former President Trump colluded with the Department of Justice on a lawsuit against the IRS. Additionally, there is a new bipartisan agreement among senators on permitting reforms to hasten energy and infrastructure construction. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric decreased to 3.4 percent this August. Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin is also pledging $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University, as noted in a recent announcement.