Birdnow's Aviary

January 13, 2026

Powell Criminally Referred

Timothy Birdnow

Jerome Powell has been referred for criminal prosecution by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna for lying to Congress about renovations to their palatial office building under construction at present.

The article gives Mr. Powell's reaction:

"This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts,” Powell said.

"The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” he added.

"I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike. In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment. Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do, with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people,” he said.

Interesting; Powell's term of office is almost up, so why would the Trump Administration want to pick this fight now, when it hands the Democrats a political weapon? It doesn't make any sense if you assume Powell's argument is correct.

A good sized number of Republicans joined the chorus of complainers, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The assumption by the media and so many of these Republicans (including John Kennedy of Louisiana) is that this was a political move, and not an anti-corruption action. But the fact is the Federal Reserve has been a tool for the Democrats for a long time and has not been non-partisan as claimed but has actively taken steps to protect the Ruling Class all alone. Just look at how Powell waited to cut rates until after the election of 2020 for instance; he clearly was manipulating the public to the best of his ability to remove Donald Trump.

Powell is dirty and that's why there is so much screaming, even from the GOP, about this. Washington itself is a filthy, filthy place.

Increasingly this reminds me of the feud between Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States. Jackson wanted to close the BOUS and Biddle was horrified he might lose his power, so he purposely tried to crash the U.S. economy to hurt Jackson's re-election chances. He didn't; Jackson won and took out the corrupt and useless Bank of the United States. We were free of that particular economic tyranny for several generations, until they created the Federal Reserve (note they didn't call the Fed a bank when they did it, knowing the distaste the public still had for central banks). Now we are supposed to believe the Fed is some purely neutral organization, laboring selflessly to give us all a better life. But have they? Since their inception they caused the Great Depression and a series of lesser depression aka recessions and have bankrupted the country by printing too much money. Inflation is almost entirely on them, for instance, and since they print all the money Congress can want it frees our representatives to be completely dissolute in their spending habits.

So now we are being told lying to Congress and wasting a couple of billion bucks is fine if it is the Fed doing it.

Time to rein that corrupt body in, if you ask me.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:56 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 How can the Fed be anything but corrupt when its very existence is a violation of the constitution? That document clearly states that only the government can create money, and yet the Fed takes great pride in controlling the economy by means of creating money itself. They call it "quantative easing."

Posted by: Bill H at January 13, 2026 09:39 AM (FRG6e)

2 Excellent point Bll. That pesky Constitution is getting in the way of a good time had by all (at least all in Washington).

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at January 15, 2026 08:24 AM (umJ+Y)

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