DOJ Drops Powell Probe, Clearing Warsh Confirmation Path

The DOJ dropped its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday, removing a block on Kevin Warsh’s confirmation before Powell’s term ends May 15. The probe focused on Powell’s June 2025 testimony about the Fed headquarters renovation, whose reported cost rose to about $2.5 billion from an earlier authorization near $1.9 billion. Chief US District Judge James Boasberg had already quashed the subpoenas and said prosecutors produced “essentially zero evidence” of a crime, and US Attorney Jeanine Pirro referred the overruns to the Fed inspector general. Sen. Thom Tillis had withheld support for Warsh until the case was dropped, a shift that could reopen Senate Banking Committee bandwidth for the CLARITY Act markup.