Dear listeners,
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell dropped a bombshell on Sunday, issuing a video statement disclosing that the Fed had been subpoenaed in a criminal investigation related to his congressional testimony about cost overruns in the Fed’s headquarters renovation. Powell said bluntly that the investigation is pretextual: an effort to use the DOJ to assert control over the Fed and its interest-rate setting apparatus.
Powell has good lawyers from Williams & Connolly. He had good policymaking reasons to make the statement, and he avoided addressing the substance of the congressional testimony he gave last year, from which some in the administration hope to cook up a claim about lying to Congress. The statement, Ken says, was fine. But this situation is special and unique, much like the Fed itself. The general advice of “shut up” still stands.
Meanwhile, Minnesota and some of its municipalities have sued the federal government, arguing that the ICE surge in the state is illegal and unconstitutional. Minnesota’s broadest claims — relying on the Tenth Amendment and a claim that the federal government has commandeered state and local governments simply by causing a huge disruption they must respond to — goes well beyond any current understanding of how the Tenth Amendment delegates powers to the states. But narrower claims about specific violations of individual rights may fare better.
Those discussions are for all listeners. Paying subscribers also get:
A look at intensifying turnover in US Attorneys’ offices, including the resignation of top prosecutors who had been leading the investigations into welfare fraud in Minnesota that was concentrated in the state’s Somali-American community. Some of these prosecutors were unwilling to take actions DOJ now wants, including launching a probe into Renee Good’s widow. Meanwhile, in the Eastern District of Virginia, DOJ fired a top prosecutor who wasn’t willing to simultaneously lead the office and try to restart the James Comey prosecution. And in the Northern District of New York, yet another Trump designee was invalidly appointed, causing trouble for an investigation related to Letitia James.
We also have DOJ’s argument for why Lindsey Halligan can keep calling herself a US Attorney after a judge ruled she isn’t one.
Senator Mark Kelly’s many arguments for why Pete Hegseth can’t reduce his rank and pension.
Some “shut up” news: prosecutors want to admit several incriminating statements from defendant Thomas Goldstein’s pre-trial New York Times profile. They’ll be able to bring these into evidence through a hearsay exception, but they may need to summon Jeffrey Toobin — in person, one hopes — to testify that Goldstein really made the statements to him.
And a look at a bizarre situation where Bruce Fein insists he somehow became Nicolas Maduro’s lawyer even though Maduro says he never hired him.
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
