Boasberg blocks subpoenas against Fed Chair Jerome Powell
A federal judge blocked the Justice Department’s efforts to issue a pair of grand jury subpoenas to the Federal Reserve Board, concluding that the effort was merely a “pretext” to pressure Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell into lowering interest rates or resigning. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in the newly unsealed ruling that the Justice Department offered “no evidence whatsoever” that Powell committed any crime “other than displeasing” President Donald Trump. “Did prosecutors issue those subpoenas for a proper purpose? The Court finds that they did not,” he said. “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.” EX-JUDGES BLAST TOP TRUMP DOJ OFFICIAL FOR DECLARING ‘WAR’ ON COURTS The ruling comes after U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro opened a criminal inquiry into Powell’s June 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee centered on the Fed’s years-long renovation of its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Powell revealed the investigation publicly in January, which he described as an attack on the Fed’s independence. Pirro said Friday that the Justice Department would appeal the ruling to a higher court. “This process has been arbitrarily undermined by an activist judge,” she said at a news conference Friday, arguing that Boasberg “put himself at the entrance door to the grand jury, slamming that door shut — irrespective of the legal process — and thus preventing the grand jury from doing the work that it does.” Any appeal could prolong Trump’s efforts to remove Powell from the Fed and replace him with his pick — former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh — as Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. remarked on social media Friday. AMERICANS MAY HAVE TO PAY TO BRING BACK ALLEGED MEMBERS OF ‘FOREIGN TERRORIST CARTEL’ TO US 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 said. “We all know how this is going to end, and the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on,” he said. “Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair.” Boasberg used the ruling to tick through many of Trump’s social media posts blasting Powell and unsuccessfully pressuring him to lower interest rates before suggesting that someone else should replace him to head up the Fed. “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell has done it again!!! He is TOO LATE, and actually, TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL, to have the job of Fed Chair,” Boasberg said in one citation — noting that it was among “at least 100 statements that the President or his deputies have made attacking the Chair of the Federal Reserve and pressuring him to lower interest rates.” “Being perceived as the President’s adversary has become risky in recent years,” Boasberg said. “In his second term, Trump has urged the Department of Justice to prosecute such people, and the Department’s prosecutors have listened.” This is a breaking news story. Check back shortly for updates.
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New Iranian supreme leader ‘likely disfigured,’ Hegseth says
War Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a Friday morning press briefing that the U.S. “is decimating the radical Iranian regime’s military” and that the Islamic Republic’s new supreme leader was injured and “likely disfigured.” “Desperate and hiding, they’ve gone underground, cowering,” Hegseth said of Iranian leadership. “That’s what rats do. We know the new so-called not-so-Supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured,” he said. TRUMP SAYS US ‘TOTALLY DESTROYING’ IRAN AND TO ‘WATCH WHAT HAPPENS’ FRIDAY Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed during the beginning of the war, issued a statement on Thursday that Hegseth described as “weak.” “It was a written statement,” Hegseth said. “Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders. Why a written statement? I think you know why. His father, dead. He’s scared, he’s injured, he’s on the run and he lacks legitimacy. It’s a mess for them. Who’s in charge? Iran may not even know.” PENTAGON ESTIMATES IRAN WAR COST $11.3B IN THE FIRST SIX DAYS IN CLOSED-DOOR CONGRESSIONAL HEARING: REPORT “We’re on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before,” Hegseth said. “Soon, and very soon, all of Iran’s defense companies will be destroyed,” he noted. TRUMP WARNS OF IRANIAN ‘SLEEPER CELLS’ AS CANADA IS ACCUSED OF HARBORING REGIME OPERATIVES “I serve God, the troops, the country, the Constitution, and the president of the United States and answer only to those, all in service of victory on the battlefield and the military objectives that we’ve laid out from day one: Defeat the missiles, missile launchers and defense industrial base, which I laid out today. Defeat the Navy and deny Iran the ability to have a nuclear weapon. Clear, decisive, achievable.”