President Trump publicly slammed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as “corrupt or incompetent” while a massive Department of Justice probe into the central bank’s activities continues to unfold, as per The Hill. You might think the president’s frustration stems entirely from the Fed’s ongoing, extremely expensive renovation project, but the real reason for the DOJ investigation is far more shocking.
Chair Powell revealed that the DOJ served the central bank with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment. Powell claims this aggressive inquiry isn’t actually about the renovations at all; it’s about President Trump’s long-standing anger over the central bank’s interest rate policies. This is a serious threat to the perceived independence of the Federal Reserve, and it looks like the probe is related to testimony Powell gave before the Senate Banking Committee last June.
To be fair, the renovation project itself, much like the White House East Wing counterpart, sounds like a financial disaster. The central bank is overhauling its Marriner S. Eccles and Federal Reserve Board East buildings, which haven’t been updated since they were first built way back in the 1930s. When the project kicked off in 2022, the estimated cost was already high at $1.9 billion. That price tag has now ballooned to a staggering $2.5 billion.
That’s a colossal amount of money, and the Fed is citing several reasons for the cost surge
He pointed to changes to the original building designs, higher-than-anticipated costs for materials and labor, and those fun “unforeseen conditions,” like finding way more asbestos than expected. The central bank doesn’t expect the buildings to be finished until 2027.
President Trump clearly thinks that number is absurd. He claimed he could renovate those same buildings for a mere $25 million. He also noted, “it looks like they won’t open for a long time.” But as Powell points out, the deepest animosity between the two men centers on monetary policy, not construction. Prior to the Federal Open Market Committee slashing rates by a quarter-point at each of its final three meetings of 2025, the president repeatedly attacked the Fed chair for holding rates steady.
The president has made his feelings clear for months. After the FOMC voted to hold rates steady in June, President Trump called the central bank chair a “numbskull,” a “dumb guy,” and “an obvious Trump hater.” Even this week, the president, who appointed Powell back in 2017, reiterated his critiques, calling him a “lousy” Fed chair who has “been too high on interest rates.”
The political fallout from the DOJ probe is intense, with many Republicans voicing concerns about the integrity of the Justice Department. Senate Majority Leader John Thune stated that the allegations “better be real and they better be serious” to ensure the Fed can remain independent. Thune stressed that the matter needs to be resolved quickly “because the Fed’s role and the Fed’s independence in shaping monetary policy in the country is something we need to ensure proceeds without political interference.”
Other GOP members were even blunter. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Banking Committee member who is retiring from the upper chamber, questioned the DOJ’s independence and credibility. He vowed to oppose any of President Trump’s nominees to the central bank until the matter is fully resolved.
Published: Jan 14, 2026 11:00 am