On April 24, 2026, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro — the top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia — announced on X that she was abandoning the criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The timing is the story. The announcement came three days after Trump's nominee to replace Powell, Kevin Warsh, testified before the Senate Banking Committee. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a Banking Committee member, had held up the full Senate from voting to confirm Warsh as long as the criminal investigation remained open.
Pirro had told reporters as recently as Wednesday that she was committed to continuing the probe. The probe had already been crippled: in March 2026, Chief Judge James Boasberg blocked the subpoenas Pirro's office had issued to the Fed, ruling that the government had produced “essentially zero evidence” of any crime and that “a mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning.”
In dropping the probe, Pirro wrote that she was redirecting the matter to the Federal Reserve's inspector general, whose existing audit of the Fed's Washington headquarters renovation has been underway since July 2025 — an audit Powell himself had requested. Pirro added: “Note well, however, that I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai confirmed the administration's line: “The White House remains as confident as before that the Senate will swiftly confirm Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chairman to finally restore competence and confidence in Fed decision-making.” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC), who had publicly pushed for ending the criminal probe to unblock Warsh's confirmation, said he believed Powell “was incompetent, not criminal” — effectively conceding the probe had never had a criminal predicate.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the top-ranking Democrat on Banking: “Let's be clear what the Justice Department announced today: they threatened to restart the bogus criminal investigation into Fed Chair Powell at any time while failing to drop their ridiculous criminal probe against Governor Lisa Cook.” She added: “Anyone who believes Donald Trump's corrupt scheme to take over the Fed is over is fooling themselves. The Senate should not proceed with the nomination of Kevin Warsh.”
The separate criminal probe against Fed Governor Lisa Cook — who Trump sought to fire after she, like Powell, resisted his demands to cut interest rates — remains open. Cook's case is currently before the Supreme Court.
The pattern is clean: use DOJ to manufacture criminal exposure for an independent official; drop the probe once the political leverage has been obtained. The institutional check the probe evaded is Fed independence — the constitutional-statutory design that limits presidential control over monetary policy.
On September 30 the Fed's inspector general found no grounds for a criminal referral. Trump responded that Powell should resign or “be sued” by the government (see After the Fed's Watchdog Finds No Crime, Trump Says Powell Should Be Sued 'for Either Corruption or Incompetence').