DOJ Abandons Criminal Probe of Fed Chair Powell, Clearing Warsh Confirmation as Fed Chair Successor

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced via X that she is abandoning the DOJ’s criminal probe of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, clearing the major political hurdle that had prevented Senate confirmation of Kevin Warsh as Powell’s replacement. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Banking Committee member, had effectively held the Senate from voting on Warsh until the criminal investigation ended. After Pirro’s announcement, Tillis dropped the blockade. The Federal Reserve’s inspector general agreed to scrutinize the cost overruns at the central bank’s Washington headquarters renovation; if the IG finds wrongdoing, Pirro’s office reserves the option to restart the criminal probe.

The DOJ launched the Powell criminal investigation in January 2026 — months after Trump began publicly demanding Powell lower interest rates faster. Trump accused Powell of “impropriety and incompetence” specifically tied to the renovation project. The Federal Reserve had refused to comply with DOJ grand jury subpoenas in late January 2026. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Banking Committee ranking member, said the abandonment “is just an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair.”

The pattern is structurally significant: the criminal investigation served as leverage for personnel replacement, then was dropped exactly when Senate-confirmation calculus required it. This is the same retaliatory-prosecution-as-personnel-tool architecture that produced the SPLC indictment three days earlier (April 21) and the Brennan “grand conspiracy” probe under DiGenova (April 20). The DOJ under Bondi-Patel-Pirro now openly uses charging and dropping decisions to manage personnel outcomes across federal institutions. The Federal Reserve’s structural independence — a core feature of post-Watergate institutional design — is now subject to the same charging-as-leverage tool that produced the gutting of the DOJ Public Integrity Section. See also 2026-01-28–powell-refuses-comply-doj-grand-jury-subpoenas and 2026-04-20–digenova-appointed-brennan-probe-medetis-long-removed.