U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Friday shut the door on the Justice Department's bid to revive two grand jury subpoenas aimed at the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell, writing in a six-page ruling that prosecutors "did not come close" to persuading him he got it wrong the first time. The decision keeps the subpoenas dead, for now, and sets up what promises to be a bitter appellate fight over the reach of federal prosecutorial power and the independence of the central bank.
Boasberg, the chief judge of Washington's federal trial court, had quashed the subpoenas last month after finding "abundant evidence" they were part of a pressure campaign against Powell rather than a legitimate criminal inquiry. The Justice Department asked him to reconsider. He declined.
The ruling lands at the intersection of two questions that matter to every American with a paycheck, a mortgage, or a retirement account: Can the executive branch use a grand jury to lean on the Fed chairman over interest-rate policy? And does the judiciary have any business stepping in to stop it? Boasberg answered both, and the answers will not satisfy the prosecutors who brought the case.
The subpoenas grew out of a Justice Department investigation, launched earlier this year, into the Federal Reserve's renovation of its headquarters, specifically the Marriner S. Eccles and Federal Reserve Board East buildings in Washington. Powell had testified before the Senate Banking Committee in June about a critical need for updates to both structures. The project was initially estimated at $1.9 billion but swelled to $2.5 billion after design changes, rising costs, and what the Fed described as "unforeseen conditions."
Cost overruns on a government building project are hardly novel. But the timing of the investigation raised eyebrows. As The Hill reported, President Trump had attacked Powell and other members of the Fed's board for months, specifically for refusing to lower interest rates, before the Justice Department opened its probe. Two subpoenas were then served on the Fed's board of governors seeking records tied to the renovation.
Boasberg framed the legal question plainly: Was the "dominant purpose" of those subpoenas to pursue a legitimate investigation because the facts suggested wrongdoing, or to pressure Powell into cutting rates or stepping aside?
He chose the latter. And on Friday, he said nothing the government offered in its motion for reconsideration changed his mind.
The judge's language was pointed. In his original ruling, Boasberg wrote that the government had "produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime," as Breitbart reported. On reconsideration, Boasberg said the DOJ offered "no new evidence" and identified "no material error" that would justify reversing course.
In his six-page opinion, Boasberg drew a sharp line between two distinct issues, one the government kept raising, and one it kept ignoring:
"The Government has missed this distinction. It makes arguments and cites cases about its broad subpoena power and insists that it does not need evidence, but it ignores the fact that its total lack of a good-faith basis to suspect a crime is relevant to the second, separate question of the subpoenas' true purpose."
Put differently: prosecutors kept insisting they had wide authority to issue subpoenas. Boasberg did not dispute that general principle. What he disputed was whether that authority can be wielded when the evidence points not toward a crime but toward political coercion. "The subpoena power 'is not unlimited' and may not be abused," he wrote.
The AP reported that Boasberg found "abundant evidence that the subpoenas' dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will." That finding, left undisturbed by Friday's ruling, is the core of the case going forward.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who oversees the District of Columbia office that brought the investigation, did not take the ruling quietly the first time around. After Boasberg's initial decision last month, she held a press conference and called him an "activist judge" who had "neutered" her office's authority.
Friday brought a similar tone. Timothy Lauer, a spokesperson for Pirro, said the office "will absolutely appeal the judiciary's interference with our access to the grand jury." That appeal will move the fight to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a venue where the legal arguments over prosecutorial power and judicial oversight will be tested at a higher level.
The question of whether a federal judge can quash a grand jury subpoena on the grounds that it serves an improper purpose is not a trivial one. Grand jury proceedings are ordinarily secret, and courts have historically given prosecutors wide latitude. Boasberg's willingness to look behind the subpoenas and evaluate their motive is itself a contested legal move, one the appellate court will have to weigh carefully.
Pirro's critics, including some Republican senators, see the investigation differently. The Washington Times reported that Sen. Thom Tillis wrote on X that the ruling "confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is, and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence." Tillis had previously said he would block the confirmation of Kevin Warsh, Trump's nominee to succeed Powell as Fed chair, until the probe was resolved.
That confirmation fight adds a practical dimension to the legal dispute. Powell's term as Fed chair is set to end, and Trump has nominated former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh to replace him. But as Fox News reported, the ongoing investigation has complicated the Senate math. Tillis indicated that continuing the appeal would only delay Warsh's path to the chairmanship, creating an odd dynamic in which the administration's own legal strategy may be undermining its preferred personnel outcome.
For conservatives who want a new direction at the Fed, this is worth pausing over. The investigation into a building renovation, one that has produced, in the judge's words, "essentially zero evidence" of a crime by Powell, has become a procedural roadblock to installing the very person the administration wants running monetary policy.
The broader legal landscape around the Fed is already volatile. The Supreme Court is currently weighing whether Trump had the authority to fire Fed board member Lisa Cook despite long-standing legal protections for governors, a decision expected by summer. That case could reshape the boundaries of presidential power over the central bank for a generation. Readers following that dispute will recall that the Supreme Court agreed to review Trump's authority over the Federal Reserve earlier this year.
The Cook case and the Powell subpoena fight are legally distinct, but they share a common thread: the tension between executive power and institutional independence at the Fed. How the courts resolve both will shape the relationship between the White House and the central bank for years to come.
Boasberg is no stranger to political crossfire. His name has appeared repeatedly in high-profile clashes between the judiciary and the executive branch. The "activist judge" label Pirro applied is one that has been leveled at other federal judges who have blocked administration policies, sometimes with more justification than others.
In this case, the charge carries a specific sting because Boasberg did not merely rule on a procedural technicality. He made a factual finding, that the subpoenas were pretextual, and then held firm when asked to revisit it. Whether that finding survives appeal will depend on the standard of review and the appellate panel's appetite for second-guessing a trial judge's assessment of prosecutorial motive.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court hearing on the Cook dispute continues to draw attention from Fed watchers and legal scholars alike, adding another layer of uncertainty to an already fraught institutional moment.
As Just The News reported, Boasberg wrote in his original ruling that "there is abundant evidence that the subpoenas' dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will." That sentence will be the battleground on appeal.
The appeal is coming. Pirro's office has made that clear. The D.C. Circuit will decide whether Boasberg overstepped by evaluating the government's motive behind otherwise facially valid subpoenas, or whether he correctly applied the principle that prosecutorial power has limits.
For the administration, the stakes extend beyond this one case. If the appellate court upholds Boasberg, it will establish a precedent that federal judges can look behind grand jury subpoenas and block them when the evidence suggests political rather than criminal intent. That would be a significant check on executive power, one that future administrations of either party would have to live with.
If the court reverses, prosecutors get their subpoenas back, and the investigation into the Fed's $2.5 billion renovation project moves forward. Powell would face the prospect of producing records in a probe that, at least so far, has not identified a specific crime he is suspected of committing.
The Supreme Court's posture on protecting Fed officials from executive removal adds yet another variable. A ruling in the Cook case that reinforces the independence of Fed board members could undercut the legal and political logic of an investigation that Boasberg has already called pretextual.
Either way, the central question remains: Was this investigation about a building, or about a chairman who wouldn't bend? Boasberg has answered twice now. The appeals court gets the next word.
