Warren says DoJ only dropped ‘bogus’ investigation of Powell to ‘clear the path’ for Warsh confirmation
Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee responded to the news that the justice department is dropping its “bogus” investigation into Jerome Powell.
“This is just an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair,” Warren said in a statement.
The Massachusetts Democrat also noted that Jeanine Pirro threatened to restart the inquiry at any time, and has yet to drop the investigation into Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve Governor whose attempted firing has made its way to the supreme court.
“Anyone who believes Donald Trump’s corrupt scheme to take over the Fed is over is fooling themselves. The Senate should not proceed with the nomination of Kevin Warsh,” Warren added.
Key events
Earlier, when Karoline Leavitt spoke to reporters, she noted that today’s gaggle would probably be her last before she gives birth to her second child and takes some parental leave.
“I know all of you have the president’s phone number personally, so I have no doubt that you won’t have a shortage of statements and news from this building while I’m gone,” she joked.
Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has hit the highest level of his second term, according to a polling average from the New York Times.
Fifty-eight per cent of Americans disapprove of the president’s performance, while only 39% approve according to a collation of polls from the Times. Dissatisfaction with Trump’s job performance appears to spike after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran at the end of February, and the ensuing hike in gas prices across the nation.
Investigation into Jerome Powell continues under office of the inspector general, says Karoline Leavitt
In response to the news that the justice department has dropped the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, Karoline Leavitt said that the inquiry “still continues” under the Office of the Inspector General.
The White House also urged Thom Tillis, the Republican senator who was blocking any nomination from moving forward, to confirm Kevin Warsh – the president’s pick to lead the central bank – as “speedily as possible”.
Tillis had threatened to stall Warsh taking over until the investigation into Powell was closed.
White House confirms Witkoff and Kushner will travel to Pakistan for further talks with Iran
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner with travel to Isalamabad, Pakistan tomorrow for further talks with Iran.
The press secretary added that vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio will be waiting here in the US for updates. They will be on standby and will be prepared to dispatch to Pakistan if necessary.
Joanna Walters
Word inside the beltway is that Senator Tom Tillis has scored a victory for himself and common sense in his determination to block the nomination of Kevin Warsh, Trump’s pick to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair, until the justice department ended its investigation.
The Republican of North Carolina memorably said last month he was “sick of stupid” in some of the excesses of the second Trump administration.
Tillis has yet to comment today on the decision to drop the criminal investigation into Powell.
The investigation into Powell was always going to be an incredibly difficult case to prosecute, involving trying to prove that Powell intentionally misled the US Congress over spending on headquarters renovations, with all the while the case reeking of political interference.
Tillis said earlier this week during Warsh’s Senate hearing: “Let’s get rid of the investigation so I can support your nomination.”
More on the news today from our colleague Lauren Aratani, in this piece.
Joanna Walters
King Charles and New York major Zohran Mamdani are understood to be planning to attend a joint wreath-laying at the memorial in lower Manhattan marking the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the city that killed almost 3,000 people when hijackers flew passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
In further reporting from politics news site Politico, the outlet understands that the event will take place next Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the forthcoming visit.
Its wry observations include that: “Mamdani, son of one of world’s most prominent postcolonial theorists, will have a camera-ready moment when he greets the man whose forebears oversaw the British imperial project that undergirds his father Mahmood Mamdani’s academic career.”
Mamdani is New York’s first democratic socialist mayor. He very recently met Barack Obama for the first time and the former president and the mayor led a sing-along of the Wheels on the Bus for a gathering of little kids.
King Charles expected to meet New York mayor Mamdani – report
Joanna Walters
King Charles is expected to meet New York mayor Zohran Mamdani during his visit to the US next week, according to a report moments ago.
The British monarch is traveling to the States to visit Donald Trump at a highly sensitive time, amid a fragile ceasefire in what many view as the US president’s elective US-Israel war on Iran that had spread across the Middle East, a war that has sent energy and other prices surging globally.
Politico reported that His Majesty will meet with the highest-profile mayor in America right now, Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor.
Mamdani’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reports.
Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Summary
Hello again, US politics live blog readers, it’s been a hopping spring day in Washington, DC so far and there’s more news to come. Donald Trump is expected to leave the White House mid-afternoon to go to Mar-a-Lago and he’ll be there and back again for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in the nation’s capital tomorrow evening. We’ll bring you all the developments as they happen.
Here’s where things stand:
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Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee, said the news that the justice department is dropping its “bogus” investigation into Jerome Powell is “just an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair”.
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The justice department is ending its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, and his management of ongoing renovations to the central bank. Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, said that she was directing her office to close the inquiry. The inspector general for the Federal Reserve, an independent watchdog, has been tasked to “scrutinize the building costs overruns” instead.
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The Trump administration is vowing to crack down on foreign tech companies’ exploitation of US artificial intelligence models, singling out China at a time that country is narrowing the gap with the US in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) race.
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A majority of Americans blame Donald Trump for surging gasoline prices, which is weighing on his Republican party ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Some 77% of registered voters in the poll said Trump bears at least a fair amount of responsibility sparked by his decision to launch the US-Israel war on Iran.
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The US Justice Department’s internal watchdog will review the agency’s handling of records related to financier Jeffrey Epstein, including whether all relevant documents were disclosed and properly redacted. William Blier, acting head of the department’s Office of Inspector General, said the inquiry will examine compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The Federal Reserve inspector general is in the “best position” to get to the bottom of the “Federal Reserve’s fiscal mismanagement”, according to White House spokesperson Kush Desai.
He added that the administration remains “confident as before that the Senate will swiftly confirm Kevin Warsh” as the next Federal Reserve chair.
A reminder that Trump claimed that Powell mismanaged the renovation project for the central bank, claimed that it cost $4bn, and said it was grossly over-budget.
Warren says DoJ only dropped ‘bogus’ investigation of Powell to ‘clear the path’ for Warsh confirmation
Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee responded to the news that the justice department is dropping its “bogus” investigation into Jerome Powell.
“This is just an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair,” Warren said in a statement.
The Massachusetts Democrat also noted that Jeanine Pirro threatened to restart the inquiry at any time, and has yet to drop the investigation into Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve Governor whose attempted firing has made its way to the supreme court.
“Anyone who believes Donald Trump’s corrupt scheme to take over the Fed is over is fooling themselves. The Senate should not proceed with the nomination of Kevin Warsh,” Warren added.
A reminder, the investigation into the Fed chair was threatening to stall Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve when Powell’s term ends on 15 May.
Senator Thom Tillis, the outgoing Republican from North Carolina, threatened to withhold his deciding vote to confirm the president’s nominee, Kevin Warsh, as long as the justice department continued its investigation of Powell.
At Warsh’s confirmation hearing before the Senate banking committee earlier this week, Tillis implored the DoJ “get rid” of the investigation into Powell, so he could support Warsh – who he described as having “extraordinary credentials”.
Justice department ends criminal investigation into Fed chair Jerome Powell
The justice department is ending its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, and his management of ongoing renovations to the central bank.
Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, said that she was directing her office to close the probe as the inspector general for the Federal Reserve, an independent watchdog, has been tasked to “scrutinize the building costs overruns – in the billions of dollars – that have been borne by taxpayers”.
However, she said she would “not hesitate” to restart the investigation “should the facts warrant doing so”.
A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest developments out of the Middle East at our dedicated live blog. This includes the news that Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi will begin a trip on Friday that includes visits to Islamabad, Muscat and Moscow, according to Iranian state media.
This comes as planned talks earlier this week, as US vice-president JD Vance prepared to travel to Pakistan, were indefinitely postponed after Tehran showed no sign of attending negotiations. It’s not immediately clear when a summit with Washington will be rescheduled.
Jeremy Barr
Dozens of protesters, including members of Congress, gathered along the National Mall on Thursday to protest against an “intimate” dinner being held by Paramount Skydance’s chief executive, David Ellison, “in celebration of the first amendment” and “honoring the Trump White House and CBS White House correspondents”, and attended by Donald Trump.
Paramount has faced criticism for the dinner, which has been seen by some as illustrative of the cozy relationship between the Ellisons and the White House – right as the Trump administration is weighing whether to approve the company’s $110bn merger with CNN parent company WarnerBros Discovery (WBD). The dinner comes before Saturday’s White House correspondents’ dinner, which Trump will attend. His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is expected to sit at one of the many tables bought by CBS News for the event.
Earlier Thursday, WBD shareholders voted “overwhelmingly” to approve the merger, which will still require approval from the Department of Justice and European regulators.
The US representative Jamie Raskin, who has been vocal in his criticism of the Ellisons’ ownership of CBS News, referred to the event as “a lavish oligarch’s dinner for Donald Trump”.
“We’re gathered here together tonight [because] in the building behind us, David Ellison is hosting a dinner to honor President Trump, a dinner that’s designed to cement the Ellisons to the president in their years-running corrupt merger scheme,” Raskin said.
Speakers encouraged the crowd not to give up hope on blocking the merger, with many antitrust experts viewing a lawsuit from a coalition of state attorneys general as the most likely vehicle for doing so.
Norm Eisen, founder of Democracy Defenders Action, said Thursday’s dinner honoring the Trump administration “resembles a celebration of the first amendment the same way a book burning is a celebration of the written word”.
“That has nothing to do with celebrating the first amendment,” he added. “You all are celebrating the first amendment by being here to block the merger.”
