Powell Was Already On Thin Ice BEFORE The Criminal Referral

The FED, is supposedly an ‘arms-length’ institution, supposedly independent from the government. Powell has boldly declared his refusal to leave, but this scandal may change things.

With such an intense focus on slashing waste and abuse in the past six months, it was inevitable that significant cost overruns incurred by renovations at the fed were going to catch the attention of some Congressional deficit hawks.

Powell came before Congress, was asked, among other things, to account for the renos. He answered the questions and continued on his way.

He and Powell have been sparring over his refusal to cut interest rates. Trump has been blasting him for that:

“You have cost the USA a fortune and continue to do so,” Trump wrote in a handwritten note to Powell that he posted on Truth Social last month. “You should lower that rate by a lot. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being lost.”

In the same post, Trump blamed the Fed board, saying, “If they were doing their job properly, our Country would be saving Trillions of Dollars in Interest Cost … We should be paying 1% Interest, or better!” — CNN

Powell, for his part, has been blaming the stubbornly high interest rates on Trump’s tariffs. Even though we’ve not see any of the the sky-is-falling negative consequences we were told to expect those tariffs to trigger.

Even inflation is not acting as predicted.

Congress contunied looking at the spending irregularities on the reno project… and they found some serious discrepancies between the work itself, and what they were told about it by Powell. Did we mention he was under oath at the time?

That’s a bit of a problem.

“On June 25, 2025, Chairman Powell provided testimony under oath before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs regarding the renovation of the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building. In his statements, he made several materially false claims,” Luna’s letter said.

Specifically, she accused him of lying about lavish amenities at the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building and misrepresenting its state of maintenance.

“Separately, in a letter to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, Chairman Powell characterized the changes that escalated the cost of the project from $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion as minor. However, documents reviewed by congressional investigators indicate that the scope and cost overruns of this project were neither minor in nature nor in substance,” Luna wrote.

She claimed his statement that the cost increase was to simplify construction and avoid further delays was false. — FoxNews

It really doesn’t matter HOW insulated you might think your cushy government job is, it won’t be enough to protect anyone getting caught in a potential perjury charge because someone lied about fancy renovations on the taxpayer dime that go way, way, WAY over budget.

If her claims are proven true, the likelihood of Powell finishing his tenure just went WAY down.

The workaday public will have VERY little patience for such abuse of power. And he would have only himself to blame.