(Washington) The Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Fed), Jerome Powell, announced in a statement on Sunday that the American central bank had received a summons from the Department of Justice, which could lead to an indictment, based on one of its hearings last June.
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A summons which, according to him, is part of the climate of pressure exerted by American President Donald Trump on the institution, in order to push it to lower its rates more sharply, while inflation still remains above its 2% target.
“This threat is not about my testimony. “It’s a pretext, the threat of prosecution is the consequence of the Fed’s desire to decide its rates in the best interest of the public rather than to respond to the president’s preferences,” denounced Mr. Powell in a video published on the central bank’s website.
The American president accused the Fed of not having respected the budget planned for the renovation of its headquarters in Washington, estimating that there could be cases of fraud, and putting forward a total cost of 3.1 billion dollars, against 2.7 billion initially planned, a figure Jerome Powell denies.
According to the latter, the real question is “whether the Fed will be able to continue to determine its rates based on economic conditions or whether monetary policy must be driven by political pressure and intimidation.”
Even before his re-election, Donald Trump accused Jerome Powell, whom he calls “too late”, of not acting quickly enough to lower rates and of acting for political and not economic reasons.
Since his return to the White House, the Republican has continued to maintain the pressure, notably calling the president of the Fed a “nimb” and looking for a way to fire him.
“I have served the Fed under four administrations, Republican and Democratic. Each time, I have done my duty without fear or political favor, focused solely on our mandate. I intend to continue the work for which the Senate confirmed me,” Mr. Powell insisted.
The term of the Fed president is due to end next May, which will allow Donald Trump to replace him, potentially with his main economic advisor Kevin Hassett, considered by analysts to be the favorite.
In addition to Jerome Powell, the Republican tried to dismiss another Fed official, Lisa Cook, a decision temporarily postponed by the Supreme Court.
More broadly, the American government estimated last September that the work of the Fed should be the subject of a complete evaluation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent believes it “needs to change course.”
